


Humanity and Shades Thereof

by catnipquills



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AU, Anything Up to Explicit, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Malec Week 2015, Prompt Fic, Self-Indulgent, Smut, Tumblr Prompt, Varying Rating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:21:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 54,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3728764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catnipquills/pseuds/catnipquills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of Tumblr/Online Prompts </p><p>Chapter (1): One night like every other, the shadowhunter came home – and when did that happen? - in the early hours of the morning. He was in one piece. He was fine, really. Except maybe for the bloody patches on his shoulder blades where concrete had bitten into his skin and the finger-shaped marks around his throat turning purple and blue. They were nothing major but, nonetheless, angry marks itching on the surface of his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these I the summer of 2015 - before the TV Show aired. (Some of the latest chapters, I added after having seen a few of the episodes). Basically, I' adding this to give you guys some context (if you find this in the future and decide you want to give it a go) and to say thank you: for all the encouragement, the kind comments, the kudos, the friends who - like me - dive into a fandom head first and are simply obsessed. (In the best way.) Thank you!

**Prompt (1): _“When one's in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve-year-old, one does one's best to hide the damage.”_** (River Song, The Angels take Manhattan)

   Bruises and scratches covered Alec’s skin more often than not. Sometimes, there were a few broken bones or swollen joints. But the injuries he collected were hardly ever serious then, and the time-spans in which they faded away to leave pale scars expanded increasingly. Because Alec was the careful one, steady and strong and only ever learning to protect _better._ Himself and everyone else.

   He used to be a bit more reckless, a bit more headless in his attempts to shield others. But he learned about that the hard way, too. Back then, Alec tried to hide the damage and denied the pain. He was a Shadowhunter, not fragile by any means and – most of all, even if that only came a little later - he needed _Magnus_ to see that he was strong. That he needn’t worry.

   Naturally, the warlock wouldn’t have it, would drag Alec into his apartment by the elbows and check him over. The shadowhunter tried to suppress the wince when Magnus found tender spots, but it was hard to pretend when all he wanted was to melt into the warlock’s embrace. In truth, Alec would gladly let the other fuss, if it meant he would keep receiving such sweet attention. He’d whisper comfort to Magnus all night, while the other worried without voicing the thoughts in more than the worried line of his mouth, but Alec saw. _I’m here. I’m safe. I’m whole._

 

   One night like every other, the shadowhunter came home – and when did _that_ happen? - in the early hours of the morning. He was in one piece. He was fine, really. Except maybe for the bloody patches on his shoulder blades where concrete had bitten into his skin and the finger-shaped marks around his throat turning purple and blue. They were nothing major but, nonetheless, angry marks itching on the surface of his skin.

   Alec stepped over the threshold and paused there, leaned back against the door that closed with a soft click. The place was comfort and safety in a way that left him warm and bleeding free of his worries. For a moment he let exhaustion take him then and drew a shaky breath. Yes, his body was whole, but he’d admit it freely: This tore at him a little more than usually. Because some monsters reach deeper than skin and flesh and bone. Alec remembered the claws around his neck, dragging him under, choking him- “Alec.”

   Catlike eyes met his and oh, the warlock stood right in front of him, and the other’s frame spoke of pure rage, when his eyes wandered over the marks on his neck. Alec knew Magnus could drive fright into your very bones, his anger glowing bright and hot – but not against the Shadowhunter, _never against him._ Against the monsters of this world, no not that either, against the monsters that went for Alec. Monsters that pressed the last bit of air out of his lungs – the shadowhunter shuddered involuntarily. Alec’s smile wavered more than just slightly when their eyes met, his mind half-slipping into a dark place.

 

   When Magnus’s eyes gentled into something soft and he reached out, Alec thought his body would flinch, saw himself as if standing right next to him, could see the tremble of his body, the cocktail of adrenaline and belated fear kicking in. Every muscle in his body seemed wired, threating to lash out- But he was wrong, the warlock’s hand grazing his jawline was like a painted line of warmth spreading through his body like thin watercolour. Home. _Safe._ Alec slumped against the other, knew he would be caught before he felt arms around him and sighed.

   Magnus was like a balm for his tattered mind, the calm in his storm – and that was slightly ironic wasn’t it? The whirlwind of warlock being his eye to the ever-present storm? Except it wasn’t at all, for Magnus was all steadiness. Alec leaned against the other, whispering softly: “I’m okay.” – and before Magnus could protest as the line of his body suggested, the look in his eyes that Alec could not see but knew was there – “I mean, I’ll be. With you.” In response the arms around him tightened ever so slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any prompts, comments, concerns? Let me know! :)  
> 


	2. Prompt 2 - 4

**Prompt (2):** _**"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion."**_ (Rumi)

 _I wish I could make you see_ , Magnus thought to himself while watching Alec sitting on the floor, leaning back against a – as of the last half hour - canary yellow couch. (And didn’t he fit nicely into the apartment? In Magnus life? How did that happen?) The shadowhunter was absorbed in some book, one leg drawn to his body to rest the book’s spine on it, the other stretched out in front of him. Hair fell into his eyes, but he didn’t bother pushing it back. When Alec shifted, his collar gave way to a delicious view of pale skin and the elegant muscles of his neck. The shadowhunter looked content, his lips drawn in a soft almost-smile. Magnus was quite certain, he might have lost himself to this angel already.

 

 _Oh, what I would give to make you understand._ Magnus didn’t even try to be subtle. Not that it was necessary, because Alec remained obvious to his stare. There was the soft motion of the thumb of his free hand tapping his own fingertips repeatedly, circling unconsciously. The steady rise and fall of his breaths, noticeable only in his stillness. Except when you watched closely, you could see a million micro expression, a rhythm. Magnus was cataloguing them all and had yet to find a thing that he did not like in one way or another.

 _I know you wouldn’t believe me._ Alec was all hidden sparks. The drum of his heart, the twitching in his lip, whenever Magnus moved by. The smile hidden in that twitch, just below the surface of his façade. The life in his eyes, the constant flickering movement of sunlight reflected, when his eyes darted along the page. He was beautiful. So much that Magnus struggled to put it into words, to make him understand.

 

 _But don't you worry, my little_ angel. _I’ll tell you again and again, for as long as either of us can stand it. Till language and sound has all but evaporated. I’ll never tire of trying to make you see, just how very beautiful you are. Not until every trace of life has left the earth, our bodies and souls torn into so many tiny bits that we’ll be stardust once again, moving apart in lightning speed In space, only to crash back together and explode in fire and flame._

 

***

 

 **Prompt (3): _“There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”_** (Vincent van Gogh)

   The air outside was icy dragging crystal fingertips over the kerbstones. A few drops of blood on the ground was frozen already. It’s their blood, but they are all whole. All superficial wounds and intact bones. Only the cold slowly seeping into their skin, worming its way in under their clothes. Alec shivered involuntarily.

   Isabelle was checking a few scratches on Jace’s skin, the same huffing but clearly in fondness. His sister who worried a great deal more than she’d let on. Jace who’d get hurt more often than not. Always the reckless one, bound to get hurt. Alec hovered nearby and when he remembered how often he used to take the brunt of that carelessness it seemed like a memory from another life altogether.

 

   Magnus stood close and it was almost ridiculous just how well he fit the whole picture. Alec looked at the warlock, the way he was so very comfortable in his own skin. (And if there wasn’t this - _thing_ between them, Alec would be jealous). The other was picking up something from the ground, when Alec walked over to where he straightened up. A gentle smile passed over the warlock’s lips when their eyes met and suddenly Alec isn’t all that cold anymore.

   Yielding to a sudden urge, he had stepped into the other’s space and wrapped his arms around him before he consciously decided to do so. Magnus barely missed a beat before his arm was draped around Alec’s shoulders as well. The shadowhunter signed against the side of the warlock’s neck and watched as his warm breath foggied up a tiny patch of air. Magnus nose dipped down to where the shadowhunter’s neck meet his shoulder and he could feel the warlock breathing in. Alec closed his eyes for a moment, a strange desperation in his chest.

 

   They just stood there, embracing each other and basking in the warmth radiating of the other body pressed against theirs.

   Silent and content with just being whole.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (4): _Oh how terrible it is to love something that death can touch._** (Unknown)

   “Are you okay?” Alec’s tone was soft as he stepped closer, his body angled towards the other. Magnus had a distance in his eyes, like he wasn’t really there, but he looked up at Alec’s voice cutting through the softly humming silence. The Nephilim’s eyes were positively radiating in their depth and Magnus thought for a moment he might like to drown in them. Worry laced over deep blue and Alec reached out to touch his face. “Hey,” he ran his thumb down over Magnus’s cheekbone. “Everything alright?”

   Magnus blinked. “Sorry,” he grinned sheepishly. “All good. Just thinking.” Alec gave him a gentle smile, but knew not to pry - had learned the hard way - knew that Magnus would tell him everything eventually. In his own time. (Everything that mattered anyway.) The warlock examined the other more closely, his noise wrinkling on its own account. “You’re dirty,” he muttered. The dust, the bitter ashes, the smell of someone’s grave clung to the gear the Shadowhunter was still wearing. _The smell of dea-_

   Alec huffed and moved across the room, started undressing with practiced ease. Magnus watched, fascinated by how much this had changed, how comfortable Alec had become with himself. With them. Suddenly Alec turned, grinning brightly. “Join me for a shower?” Magnus almost laughed out loud at the predator glance the other shot him when moving towards the bathroom.

 

   The warlock took a hurried step to catch the other’s wrist and tugged. The momentum made Alec tumble right into his arms and while the younger gasped at the suddenness of it, he recovered quickly, still smiling brightly. Magnus tipped his head back with a hand below his jaw and kissed him sweetly. They only broke apart when air became a necessity, panting and resting their foreheads on each other’s for a moment.

 _One day,_ thought Magnus hugging Alec tightly, _one day much too soon. I won’t be okay at all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again! Any prompts, comments, concerns?


	3. Prompt 5 - 9

**Prompt (5):** _**I want to go back to when you were still here, but I can’t.**_ (Franky, Skins)

   Every time Magnus touched the fingers of his hand to his lips, it was like a feverish prayer. For a part of himself lost to the darkest of all enemies. One that could not harm him, but had taken a knife to his heart anyway. In utter silence, his mind chanted a single name over and over: _Alec._

   But that one vicious word, three syllables would slither around his ankles like a snake and worm its way up till it threatened to constrict his chest, to choke him. Oh, that one vicious word, that one – _immortal_ – was a thousand knives and hot glowing pain. For he was caught in shackles that bound him to this world, while his heart was with a man that would not, could not ever be at his side again.

   But Magnus didn’t chase for death, for the final truth was this: even if he were to die, his path would lead downwards instead of up, separating them forever.

 

***

 

**Prompt (6): _Three Words: Panic, Calming, Trust_**

   Alec was out of his dept. He was utterly, utterly helpless and completely useless. Because how could he help a warlock’s magical break down? What could he do when the other gasped from breath again and again, without being able to feel the oxygen by the panicked look of his face? He could barely catch his crumbling form, shield him from the distancing battle with his own body, drawn like a blanket over the other’s form lying with his back on the dirty concrete.

   When the warlock stared at nothing and everything, his eyes flickering, Alec realized that he wasn’t really there. There was something akin to sheer anguish in the other’s eyes and Alec could not do anything - but he found, that the drum of Magnus’s heart (even unsteady and hectic as it was) calmed his body to the core. “You’re alright,” he told the warlock steadily. “We’re all good. Everything is okay.” A litany of words tumbled from his lips in a deep, unwavering tone that Alec found was his very own. His hands rested just below the other’s ribcage and under his jaw, to hold his head steady and coax Magnus into looking at him.

   Their feet lay tangled on the concrete street, Alec pressing Magnus flat to the ground, trying not to crush him. “Magnus. You’re alright. _My love_.” And that got him. Suddenly, the warlock looked at him, not through him, raised his hands to grab his shoulders slowly and then cup his face on either side.

 

 _“Alec,”_ he whispered like a prayer, like a desperate wish for salvation and Alec stopped talking for the first time in minutes to smile shakily.

   “Yes, I’m here, my love. You’re alright, Magnus. You did so well”- _you got so many of those demons, you saved all of us again_ – “Breathe. You’re alright.” And suddenly all those words became Alec’s own comfort, his calmness wavering in the face of enormous release when he rested his forehead against the warlock’s.

 

***

 

**Prompt (7): _Missing moment in the book: On grieving_**

   In a spilt second, Alec has grabbed Magnus, hauled him up from the chair and shoved against the nearest wall. His hand grabs the junction between neck and shoulder almost bruising strong, but Magnus does not even flinch. He stares back coldly against the Shadowhunter, but does not fight the assault one second, bares his neck in a gesture that isn’t exactly submission. Alec’s eyes burn hot in anger, desperation and something that is more confusion than anything else.

   “How would you understand?” he almost screams and his voice breaks, his strength not calculated but all emotion that bursts out of him. He is smaller than Magnus, but right now he seems almost dangerous in the way he squares his shoulders. “How could you-“ The arm that Alec has pressed against his chest to hold the warlock still shifts when his voice gives out and Alec opens his mouth to say something again, but nothing comes over his lips. Once, twice. There is tears in his eyes, threatening to take over this vision of anger. The Shadowhunter lets him go suddenly, steps back, stares at him. Magnus does not move.

   Alec has it all wrong, he understands very well. Of course, Magnus does understand death, for immortality may protect himself, but never his heart. That’s why he knows that not a word he could say or a thing he could do, would make this any better. So he remains silent, knowing that any words he said would be picked apart and twisted into something ugly. He does nothing but offer his outstretched hand to the shadowhunter, whose anger is fizzling out already when he steps into the warlocks embrace and sobs about a nine-year old brother meeting death far too soon.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (8): _Do you need someone or do you need me?_** (Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything...) ** _  
_**

   When they get back together, it isn’t all just magically easy. The past is forgiven, but not forgotten. So, Alec isn’t surprised when Magnus regards him a bit wearily one time or another, for he sees now: the warlock is scared, too.

   Nonetheless, Alec had never had a sword run through him that hurt as bad as the words from Magnus lips, when the shadowhunter had barely managed to come see him in 4 weeks. Alec was irritated with everybody, made an unfair comment while the pain of a cracked bone still rattled his body. But that wasn’t what tipped the situation, rather it was a poor choice of words that made Alec say something about searching “just someone’s comfort”. Not that he meant it. He’d never mean that.

   When he looked up, he almost flinched back. There was that look in Magnus eyes, the one that eliminated any doubt he was part demon. “Ah, yes,” he said voice dropping low and dangerous. “One question, though. Do you need _someone_ or do you need _me_?” It was ice running down his spine, the venom in the other’s voice biting and bruising.

   And it was not fair that he would ask that, for hadn’t Alec proven that a hundred times? Hadn’t he- his mind stuttered into silence, for the anger that threatened to clutch him faded out immediately when the voice at the back of his head screamed: y _ou can’t loose him. You love him. Tell him._ The sound was ringing in his ears and he wanted to kneel in front of him, to take the words back. But that wasn’t right either, was it?

   “I want you," he simply said, staring back at those eyes that held every capacity for cruelty. “And I don’t care who sees, don’t care who know, because I don’t want any of them. I want you, only you.” And something softened in the others stance, in his gaze, his posture, it was almost enough. “Magnus. I want you. I love you.”

   And while that might not have mended every crack in their relationship, it was enough for a soft kissed apology that either side wanted to say.

 

***

 

**Prompt (9): _three words: hurt, protective, déjà vu_**

   Alec gets hurt a lot in his line of “work”. That’s part of the hunting, the ever constant risk, even if Alec tries to be careful, tries to be rational about every move. He guards the people around him. Guards his own life, more than ever. Isabelle says once, that even that last bit isn’t for himself, that he does it for Magnus’s sake only. Alec denies it, for there is still Isabelle herself and Jace, but he knows she’s right about the point she’s trying to make. In the end, Alec tries to act soothing to all of Magnus worries, tries to be stronger and cleverer than every darkness they encounter. Even if only to erase that frown on the warlock’s face.

   However, Alec wished sometimes that Magnus was not as protective, wouldn’t spark white hot rage whenever he saw something more than a bruise. It seemed an overreaction, really. Then, the tables were turned one afternoon. Suddenly, it was Magnus who was hurt, drained and sleepy, the left side of his face covered in angry and raw red skin, his lower arm sliced open. Blue sparks mended the skin back together when Alec came into the room. A gasp left his mouth before he could stop himself. “What happened?” demanded a voice that was a little sharper than Alec’s own. Magnus looked up and sighed. “Client thought he might use a slightly more forceful approach,” he said more annoyed than anything. “Let me tell you, he regretted it.”

   Alec hardly heard the words, was at his side in an instant, touching and fussing before he realized he was doing it. The gush along the length of his arm was fading away quickly, the image burned into Alec’s memory nonetheless, but his temper comforted by the closing wound. He gently turned Magnus face sideways with a hand on his jaw to examine the damage not yet taken care of. Magnus didn’t fight his hands, let him examine and comfort.

   “Trust me, the other guy has it worse,” Magnus said then, strangely delighted at Alec’s reaction. The Shadowhunter was still furious. “I still think I should go and make sure he got the message.” The warlock inclined his head, leaning into the other’s touch like a cat might into a caress. He reached for Alec’s hand and pressed a kiss into his open palm, the same expression still on his face. “You do realize, I’m quite capable of protecting myself, darling.”

   “Still. You shouldn’t get hurt. I’ll make sure that everyone who tries-“ and suddenly Alec realized the way Magnus was regarding him. This was in truth the strangest moment of déjà vu, except all wrong and reversed. Magnus smiled at his realization, not unkindly, and drew the Shadowhunter in with a hand on the back of his neck. And reading the new expression on his face, the warlock whispered against his lips: “I know what you mean. Believe me, I know that feeling quite well.”

   And suddenly Alec understood the look Magnus gave him every time he came home with yet another scar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still haven't read all of the book, but those two just fascinate me. Please note: I have no idea what happens after the first three books (though I might have read some spoilers...). Comments, Questions, Concerns? :)


	4. Prompt 10 - 13

**Prompt (10): _three words: steady, confessions, blood  
_**

   Magnus grip was steady on his hand, despite the blood running down Alec’s arms and – _oh god that was quite a lot wasn’t it and he shouldn’t feel so cold, right?_ The warlock’s eyes were glowing, sparks emitting from his hands. The pain Alec felt was duller than it should be and he had the faint thought that Magnus had something to do with that. The nephilim looked up, his vision frayed at the edges, but Magnus wasn’t looking at him. Alec knew of course the warlock could be quite scary if he wanted to be _(you didn't become High Warlock of Brooklyn for nothing)_ , but the gaze with which he fixed the demons was downright terrifying. Almost as if unaware of the action Magnus interlaced the fingers of their hands, the blood making a wet little noise. Alec held on tightly.

   “Magnus-“ started Isabelle in the blur of a motion, slashing down another demon with Jace’s help. Both of them turned halfway and Alec knew they should focus on the treat, not on them. Not on “-him. I have him. It’s alright,” Magnus said from where he sat on the floor, a bleeding Alec cradled in his arms. His voice was steady, but Alec could tell the calmness was all show. Isabelle tore herself away at last, almost receiving a blow, if not for the intervention of Jace.

   Alec made a distressed sound and tried to move, Magnus suddenly holding him tight (- and did the warlock just _wince?_ ). “Hush. They’ve got this. Don’t worry about a thing. I have you.” Alec nodded after a moment of hesitation, when his vision swam. Tiredness was oozing of his very bones. Their eyes met and Alec dropped his head against the warlock’s chest and trying to breathe. It dimly registered that the air scratched wetly through his trachea and Magnus must have heard it too because the other’s hand suddenly pressed down on the top of his chest.

   Alec tried not to give in to the panic that rose in the back of his mind, but it slipped free like a traitor: _“I love you.”_ He breathed and when he blinked his eyes open, something like raw pain slid across Magnus face, but was gone again immediately. “And I love you, darling, but your timing is a bit off.” Alec could tell the warlock wasn’t as calm as he’d like the shadowhunter to think, but didn’t call him out on it. He just allowed the slight upward twitch of the corner of his mouth at the little jab and settled back against him.

 

   “Alec," Isabelle said suddenly right next to his ear and he blinked his eyes open, he didn’t remember closing them. He took a breath to speak and wheezed suddenly, his vision swimming. “Don’t try to speak.” Magnus sounded tense. Alec wanted to comfort him, but found himself short of air. He was only vaguely aware of being lifted, voices around him sounding slightly fanatic. When he was jostled up into someone’s arms, Magnus warmth left him for a moment and pain laced through his whole body like a hot knife. He cried out through gritted teeth.

   Then, Magnus was back and pressed his lips to the crown of his head. “Sorry, love, I won’t let go of you again,” whispered the warlock against the side of his head as Alec was traded over to his arms. Alec’s last though before blacking out completely went along the lines of: _Is this you still holding onto me or am I holding onto you now?_

 

***

 

**Prompt (11): _three words: loss, mourning, unexpected_**

   Magnus remembered the day, because how in the world could he ever forget? It was etched into his very being. Once a year, every year, he’d mourn for the love of his life. He’d curse death, because he is a cruel god and often snatched people from the world when it was least expected. Say you’d be a demon hunting professional, always in constant danger and evading it by the skin of his teeth every time, you'd come back home every time. Only to get run over by a car. Death has a vicious sense of humour.

   Magnus would remember and almost choke on the images flooding his mind, even many years later. As the years passed, he’d throw a party more often than not, desperate to forget. This time especially. This year. It had been a hundred years. _Was it so long already?_ Magnus figured it must be, as time seemed to move far more quickly these days. His parties where what they always where, though his tastes now strangely nostalgic and in favour of the early 21st century.

   While so much was different, dancing was the same and partying seemed the same. However, is spite of all the tumult, he was seated a little secluded on a couch. So much for distracting himself from these thoughts then. The faint drum of the music filled the room steadily, when someone came up to him. “Do you think he would have liked it?" inquired a voice  to his right and Magnus looked up at that. It was Simon, still alive ( _well not really but kind of_ ) and Magnus examined him for a moment. He wasn’t sure whether he despised him for it or loved the existence of any life at all that his beloved's had touched.

   “He would have hated it,” Magnus said, couldn’t keep himself from being fond of the memory of their first meeting, even if it clutches at his heart like something cold and destructive. Simon huffed. “He wouldn’t have if you had been there," stated the vampire and Magnus realized that time had made him bitter, too, having loved and lost just the same, even if his words are- “That was almost kind.”

   “Well you know how I am.” Simon grinned sharp-teethed, all vampire and little humanity left. Magnus understood the feeling. Wanting to be all beast and no emotion. He’d been there. He’d done that. “All that power at your hands”, Simon wondered suddenly, his face turning serious. “And… there is nothing to get them back? Nothing at all?” Magnus regarded him unsurprised, found his mind tumbling right down to a dark place and – “No. Nothing at all. Even magic has its limits.” _(What he didn’t say was that love had not.)_

 

   For in truth, Magnus would not have survived the death of his beloved. _(He never would have survived that, weren’t people paying attention?)_

   So much later that night, in the early hours of the morning, Magnus settled on a couch that faced away from the doorway and listened closely. It wasn’t long that a key turned in the lock and gear was stripped of.The sound of feet walking towards him was heard and the warlock smiled as arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind. An only slightly smaller frame sighed as it slumped against the back of the sofa. Magnus reached up to play with the sleeve of a pitch-black sweater. “You really have to stop being dramatic about it,” the other said exhausted and the warlock tilted his head back to grin into bright blue eyes.

   “But darling, we should commemorate the day you died,” he almost crooned at the lovely face above him, touching his cheek almost absently. “Seems to lose its meaning when it’s temporary," Alec informed him, letting go for a second to get rid of the belt bearing another few weapons, only to lean right back in.

   “Death, I mean. You know-" Magnus cut him off by dragging him down, making the nephilim almost tumble to the floor as he stumbled over the back of the sofa right into the warlock’s arms. It was a chaotic movement of limps, but Magnus controlled how they settled almost effortlessly. The warlock leaned in to kiss his shadowhunter, all sweet and tender.

   Magnus couldn’t help interrupting that discussion. The idea of losing his angel alone made his whole being shatter. Alec could have died, would have, if time hadn’t been tricked that one time. When they broke apart, the warlock traced the cheekbone of his beloved. In secret, Magnus was still terrified that one day death might realize it had been betrayed.

   Just to stop the threatening fear clinging to closely to him, the warlock talked on. “We should tell Simon someday.” Magnus mused quietly and suddenly Alec looked sad. “Wouldn’t that be cruel? For him to see that we got our eternity and Izzy-“ He stopped talking suddenly. Sadness evaded his facial features and Magnus remembered thinking gratefully in another life that he’d never see that on Alec’s face, never wished for him to feel that. The price for eternity. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” – “Don’t be.”

   Alec leaned in this time and there was nothing heated in their touch for now, only quiet tenderness and something slow burning. Magnus framed Alec’s head between his hands and his face turned serious. “I thought I would die, too.” He admitted freely and when Alec looked confused, alarmed for a second added: “When I saw you lying there on the ground” and then: “I can’t stop being thankful for how lucky we are. Can’t stop thinking that you might be an illusion that I conjured up when you died, because I turned mad and in reality I’m sitting all alone in some mental hospital staring out of the window at the crows flying by as the world slowly burns to the ground, but I don’t care. For any world without you can burn for all that I’m concerned.”

   Alec’s arms were suddenly very tight around him and Magnus blinked when he was pressed to the other’s chest. “You’re not mad. I’m here. You’re here. We’re good, as safe as it gets, we’re-“ and Magnus realized as the other’s voice breaks that he was crying. He touched the shadowhunter’s cheek. “Darling. Why are you crying?” – “Because even the idea of that – even thinking that – _I need you to be save._ ”

   Magnus thought that his words might make him melt, give over whatever was left of his heart. But Alec had that already, all of it. “I am. So are you. We are save,” Magnus said with kisses to the others face, tenderly rubbing the tear tracks away. They still lay in each other’s arms when the sun rose over the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye Magnus saw few crows flying by outside the window and wondered.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (12): _They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered._** (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

   Alec took a shattering breath, his forehead pressed to Magnus’s. The warlock hummed softly against his lips, before attacking them again in a kiss that was all tenderness, yet catching the lower lip of the other between his teeth. Alec grinned for a moment before his lips went slack again and gripped the other’s arms that were braced on either side of him just above the elbows to rock up. The movement made both of them groan.

   Their lips were still almost touching, they were sharing breath like there was no air anywhere but in the other’s lungs. The jackrabbit heartbeat in Alec’s chest would attribute to that theory, the dizziness of his mind. Alec shifted again out of the sheer need to move, gasping at the sweet pleasure coiling behind his navel and dropping his head back to the sheets. “ _Magnus,_ ” he breathed. The warlock above him grinned, pressing a messy kiss to his exposed throat. Alec gave a sound very close to a whimper.

“Magnus. Please.” Magnus shushed him softly, began to move his hips in tiny gentle circles that were sweet torture. Alec’s hands wandered to his back, pulling him closer. “ _Please_ ” he gasped again and their eyes met when he looked up. It is the oddest feeling to have something so powerful loom over you, to know they could destroy you so completely that all that would be left would be scattered by a gush of wind. But at the same time knowing that this someone, so very powerful, would carve their own heart out before they ever laid a finger on you or let anyone else harm you. To have someone so dear, so close, so very deep- “Please what?”

   Cat-like eyes twinkled in the half-dark and Alec pushed himself up, cradled the warlock’s face with shaky fingers. The shadowhunter’s lips drew into a wicked grin, when he saw that Magnus’s eyes were blown in desire, the effect on him just as clear as on Alec himself. He steadied himself, stared openly back at Magnus’s look and whispered lowly against his lips: “ _Harder_.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (13): _Even the stars are not immortal, we all must burn. ([found here](http://cassandraclare.tumblr.com/post/104203660369/even-the-stars-are-not-immortal-we-all-must-burn))  
_**

   Magnus watches Alec a lot, if he is being honest. He cherishes the smiles most, but he will take the tears too and the anger. He’ll take the pain – even though his angel’s pain hurts worse than any wound the warlock could imagine on his own body – and the exhaustion. In the beginning, he collected the images of his angel carefully and tried to spin the fleeting moment into a treat which he could wave into his very being. He wanted – still wants to keep him so much it _hurts_. So he keeps watching and collecting, for his love is so very mortal.

   One time that is like any other, they walk along the river and it’s around the time when Alec is still not sure of himself, still flinching back from touch more often than not. But that afternoon, the Shadowhunter reaches over to treat his fingers through Magnus’s. It’s a tender gesture, the way his thumb circles over the warlock’s skin and Magnus smiles at the display of affection, cherishes the braveness of Alec’s strike against all the inner demons that seem to guard his heart so closely.

   When the warlock looks up to the other, his heart stuttered. But he could hardly fault it, for what could a heart do if the sun played in an angel’s hair? What could it do when the warm smile of this angel’s lips shone so brightly? What could it possibly do against the clearness of deep blue eyes that were like the atmosphere or the ocean or like precious magic ghosting through the universe? And he might have stared a little while trying to commit this moment to his memory as precisely as possible; but he gave it up a second later. For his heart might remember this for him.

   _Oh, my love._ Magnus thought and tried to swallow the fear that he was already in to deep, was falling way too hard. _Even if the stars die out, you will live on like this, this very image you are right now, because this is beauty and everything eternity ought to be._ And he felt his own lips drawing apart in a smile that was bittersweet already. _Oh my love, even if your body is mortal, the truth is your soul is much more immortal than any part of me could ever be._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any prompts? :)  
> Comments, Questions, Concerns?


	5. Prompt 14 - 18

**Prompt (14): _Exhaustion_**

   When Magnus came home that evening he was all giddy about the dinner they had planned. He had the whole night carefully sorted out, as there was hardly ever a day when both of their lives aligned so perfectly. (The warlock was determined to change that very soon, time already seeming so fleeting at his fingertips- he shook the thought off.)

   He stepped over the threshold, softly humming to himself and had already crossed halfway through the living area when he saw black shoes haphazardly thrown to the ground. His lips drew apart into a fond smile that. _(Treacherous heart. Can’t even be annoyed at the chaos.)_ He set down the groceries on a counter at the far end of the kitchen area and made his way through the flat.

   His angel, however, was nowhere to be found until the warlock passed the bedroom and made out a sleeping figure draped across the bed. When Magnus went to sit next to the other on the soft covers, he frowned. There was exhaustion written across Alec’s face as he shifted to his side and his features seemed tense. Magnus softly dragged the pad of his thumb along the others cheekbone. When he bend to kiss a soft touch to the shadowhunter’s forehead, the other suddenly seemed alerted to his presence. “Magnus?” Alec half-breathed with his blue eyes fluttering open and his voice sounded pitiful small. “Oh. We had dinner planned, right? I-“

   Magnus hushed him, pressed him back to the covers when he made to move. He came to lie next to Alec, drew him in and the other shuddered at the contact as if falling apart at the seams, and went boneless against the warlock in a gesture that was all trust. “It’s fine”, the warlock whispered to the other’s hair. “You’re clearly more in need of sleep than of food.” A soft smile tugged at the corner of the nephilim's lips.

   The other’s breathing evened out somewhat after he shifted again, but he didn’t fall asleep like Magnus expected, even though his whole frame spoke of exhaustion. “What’s wrong?” he whispered softly to his lover’s hair after another few minutes of restless shifting and heard the other sign again. Magnus’s heart bled at the frown on the Alec’s face. “I can’t sleep.” murmured the angel against his chest, not meeting his eyes. And he must have realized how childish that sounded, how weak, for Alec almost flinched at his own words. “I mean –“ his voice broke, his mind trying to formulate an explanation, to make Magnus understand how very wired he was “I’m so tired. I’m so very, very tired. But I can’t sleep, I just-“ a sound terrifyingly close to a sob broke free of the other (and this was the worst pain Magnus felt, the one that wasn’t really his but _Alec’s_ ).

   Alec looked up at him, his lips forming more soundless words, trying to explain. But there was no need. Magnus cradled his head, kissing his forehead, his half-closed eyelids, the corner of his lips, softly comforting him, whispering sweetly: “Yes, you can. Leave it to me. I’ll watch everything, I’ll make sure they’re all safe.” And when Alec looked up at him: “I’ll guard you. Sleep, my love, I’ll make sure the world keeps turning.” Magnus’s smile grew at the last words and Alec huffed softly, but it came out a bit strangely, before closing his eyes and settling down against him.

   “Magnus?”

   “Yes, dear?”

   “Thank you,” Alec breathed and settled finally.

 

***

 

**Prompt (15): _Immortality_**

   Sometimes they’d just sit on the bed, doing nothing in particular and Magnus would idly let his eyes wander over the wallpaper. He’d move his hands with ageless grace over his own eyes, the bone of his nose, absently as if caught in though. Alec would stare for this was a precious part of Magnus’ beauty, the one that was all timeless.

   “Magnus,” Alec found himself saying, propping himself up on one elbow. The warlock turned his head, coming back from the world of his own mind in a second. “You’re beautiful.” _And I say it too little._ The warlock blinked for a second and then smiled brightly. “Thank you, darling, but are you entirely sure you don’t have that backwards?” he teased and leaned over right into Alec’s space which the other welcomed immediately.

   “Completely sure,” the nephilim said, his face remaining serious. Magnus’s smile softened into something Alec couldn’t quite name. ( _Affection so bright it was bound to hurt._ ) The warlock leaned to kiss him and whispered in a voice that seemed all tenderness: “Oh my love, you say the sweetest things.”

 

***

 

 **Prompt (16): _I don’t remember falling in love with you. I just remember holding you hand realizing how much it was going to hurt when I would have to let it go._** ([found here](http://lion--hearted.tumblr.com/post/103007487675/dumbdaisies-i-dont-remember-falling-in-love)) ** _  
_**

   The feeling hit him completely unprepared. A for a solid minute, Magnus Bane, felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was any other moment, Alec curling into his side on the sofa, their feet hopelessly tangled with each other. The Nephilim was fast asleep, his body tired and sore from another hunt that had doubtlessly almost gone amiss – in spite of Alec denying this vehemently of course – and when Magnus turned off the TV and settled back on the cushions, taking Alec with him and causing him to shift in his sleep, but not to wake up, he remembered the bloody shoulder and the faint limping of his angel coming through the door.

   And in a startling realization his mind just went: _he could have died._ Which wasn’t new, not at all because the shadowhunter was constantly at risk which Magnus was very aware of naturally. But then his heart went: _I could have lost him._ And that was new, that was bright and painful and almost unbearable. Not the sentiment itself of course, but rather the almost physical pain that lingered somewhere in his body. Magnus shut his eyes and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

   Alec shifted and softly touched his fingers to the other’s jaw. “What’s wrong?” he asked sleepily and the warlock moved to catch the nephilim’s hand and press a kiss to his palm. He shook his head softly. “Just a little headache, don’t worry.” It was a white lie, Magnus told himself, there was no need to have this kind of conversation just yet.

   The nephilim pushed himself up and cupped the warlock’s cheeks to press a soft pair of lips to his forehead. “Better?” It made Magnus smile, his whole body tingling with warmth (- which sharped the pain for a moment, but he refused to let it burn) “Yes, little one.”

 

***

 

 **Prompt (17): _I hope you fall in love with someone who never lets you fall asleep thinking you’re unwanted_** _._ (Wouldn’t It Be Wonderful, l.h.k)

   In the beginning, _(when Magnus was attracted but not utterly in love yet because he didn’t know Alec enough then)_ the warlock just wished the nephilim would stop running after a reckless blonde boy, who was dangerous and uncaring and would only break Alec’s heart.

   Then, _(when Magnus was falling for him so hard he thought he’d need to have him all for himself)_ the warlock wished Alec would realize how well the two of them would fit. That wasn’t quiet love though, as he realizes now, because love does never wants to possess like that. It was desire and Magnus faults a lot of his action on that. A first kiss to rushed maybe, an expectation too high to reach that fast.

   In the end, _(when Magnus was already so in love he would tear down the sky for his angel in a heartbeat)_ the warlock wanted something else again. And that wish was born purely out of love, because it hurt like nothing Magnus had ever known to let Alec go. (His treacherous heart would constrict and beat shakily in his chest and – he had no words, but it _hurt_.) But while the warlock suffered, he wished for the one thing that truly showed that his words _(I love you)_ were true: for Alec to find someone better, someone just right. Someone brave and worthy and everything good in the world because he deserved all the love this universe had to offer.

   He had never told Alec, would probably not, because his love might not be all that pure after all (because he would not give him away for anything now). Magnus was sure he’d find a lot more flaws in his own actions if he bothered to look more closely and feel a lot less deserving of that angel in his arms. But if the warlock had told the shadowhunter about these wishes, he would have found that his beloved had once wished at least two of these things for him as well.

 

***

 

**Prompt (18): _Scar to scar, I want to know every story that you ever told. (Kelly Clarkson, Warpaint)_**

   So – surprise! – Magnus Bane was not invincible, not unbreakable and not beyond tears. Well at least the make-up gives it a dramatic look, the warlock thought bitterly. He was curled up tightly on the bed, arm slung over his eyes in an attempt to just keep the world out. This was ridiculous. Everything was just fine. There was absolutely no reason to feel this miserable – well maybe except for his beloved being busy and not home in the last three days. But that was fine, Magnus got the sweetest messages from Alec who might just come home tonight. (And find him in this state. _Great._ )

   Magnus should just get his act together. Life was good. “Magnus, I’m home," an all to familiar voice called out to him a second later - or it might have been an hour. Quiet suddendly, the ever-present childish streak in his heart lashed out violently and uncontrollable. “Go away.” the warlock called back. The nephilim stopped dead in his tracks which Magnus guessed from the sudden silence. Then steps neared the bedroom. “Are you okay, Magnus?”, Alec asked in a concerned tone that Magnus would have wanted to wipe away in any other instance, but couldn’t care for right then. “I said: Go away.”

   Nothing happened for another twenty seconds or so, then Alec sat on the mattress next to him and asked softly. “What’s wrong?” Magnus shook his head, his arm still shielding himself from the world and everything and he just wanted to be miserable alone – to nurse this useless emotion for another hour or so and then just get a grip –

   Unexpectedly , an angel slipped in under his arm, pressing in close and filling up the space between his arm and his body perfectly. Warm arms wrapped around him as his dear Alec moulded himself into the shape of the warlock’s body and settled easily – _like he belonged_. He demanded no explanation, no reasoning for Magnus’s sour mood, but just held him close. And with every second, the warlock’s misery seemed a bit lighter and less potent. _(Oh you foolish little angel, why are you so perfect?)_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many ideas in my head! (And I still haven't read past City of Glass. Ugh.)


	6. Prompt 19 - 21

**Prompt (19): _On falling apart._** (Partially inspired by [this](http://elisabethhewer.co.uk/post/117690706596/in-one-timeline-we-kiss-but-the-stars-dont-come))

   There was a pile of work on his desk that didn’t seem smaller now than three hours ago. Magnus thought idly that it was funny just how much of a paperwork the title of High Warlock could entail. The warlock sighed and leaned back in his chair for a moment, he could feel a headache in the making just behind his left eye.

   Then he heard the sound the door sliding shut and shoes being pulled off which made Magnus’s lips draw up into a soft smile in spite of anything else. It took a minute or two until he felt the presence of the nephilim behind him. Without turning around, scribbling some last notes onto a sheet, he called out to him. “It’s always a good day, when you come home to me, Al- What’s wrong?” He turned and saw something wavering in the stance of his lover, the blue eyes clouded and watery.

   Magnus was up and reaching for him in a second. “Are you hurt? Alec, what’s wrong?” The shadowhunter drew a shuttering breath “No. Not hurt, not me and not the others either. I just-“ he drew his hands up in front of his face, pressing the heel of his hands to his eyes. “I- It’s not- I’m being ridiculous- Just-“ he suddenly groaned and in a voice barely above a whisper: “Magnus.” In another heartbeat, he had both hands full of nephilim. The other was seeking comfort in his embrace and there were tears falling to the side of his neck.

   The warlock didn’t know how to help because Alec sometimes did that to him and gave him the feeling that he was really just barely in his twenties except being so much older. Magnus hated that feeling with passion, the fact that he couldn’t do anything about Alec shuddering in his arms, falling apart a bit and he hated being so useless- “Just hold me. Just- don’t let go.” Magnus who hadn’t realized that he’d said the words out loud tightened his hold around the other.

   When Alec drew back a little after what could have been minutes or half an hour it was with a soft peck to Magnus lips. It was almost as if the shadowhunter was soothing him not the other way round and that was ironic in a way, but then the warlock realized how tightly his heart seemed to curl itself together. “I’ll tell you,” Alec said quickly, still standing so very close and clutching the warlock’s arms. “Just not right now, okay?” And with that he was gone from Magnus’s embrace.

 

   The rest of the day passed in generally content but somewhat uneasy silence and suddenly Magnus was grateful that his patience had grown with the years. Because he is quiet sure that he would have demanded answers right now if he really Alec’s age. However, he also realized that his capacity for worry about another person seemed to have done the same. The nephilim was restless, wandering and never sitting still, as if his mind failed to settle down as long as the words where kept behind his lips. Magnus eyes followed him more often than not and he wondered who of them would become mad first.

   When Alec deliberately walked directly past him instead of rounding the coffee-table which was the shortest line to the kitchen, Magnus caught his wrist and drew it towards himself in one fluid movement. As the rest of his body was still attached to the same wrist, Alec came to a halt, even had to brace his other hand on the back of the upholstery to regain his balance. The warlock pressed his lips against the elegant blue lines of the others wrist and chose the moment when their skins disconnected to look up at him

   “So you won’t tell me?” Magnus found himself saying and apparently patience simply wasn’t his strong suit. Alec shook his head minutely, but squeezed his hand before letting go which was sweet comfort to the warlock. The nephilim did that too, shoving him towards insanity and then dragging him back just before he tipped of the cliff.

 

   It took another few hours, but when the darkness of the night started creeping in, Alec finally sat still on the couch. Magnus wouldn’t admit it, but he was so thankful that the other finally found his words, because he knew how tricky it could be to sort you thoughts out inside your own head. “We had the ground breaking in under our feet. Well, almost,” Alec said suddenly and without context, his voice distant. Magnus stopped what he was doing, not that he had been paying attention to anything that had happened the whole day but Alec anyway.

   “If we had stood there a second longer, we would have fallen six stores down. Maybe, it wouldn’t have killed all of us immediately, but that’s quite a high drop.” Magnus moved slowly as if approaching a scared animal and though for a second that in a way he was. He came to stand next to the sofa Alec sat on and looked at him intensely, while the other still fixated some far spot on the carpet dragging the pause between the words out.

   “It’s not dying. That fear I know well, the fear of being gone, of leaving you alone. Though, that’s quite a thing, too,” and he looked up at that, met Magnus eyes. The warlock just wished he could wipe that feeling right of his face. “It’s just that… all I could think was, what would happen if they died and I lived? And then I realized… that’s what it must be like for you. It must hurt all the time, the constant throb in the background and I wished I could make this better for you, but I’m only going to make it worse, right? I’m always-“

   At that Magnus stopped his babbling, knelt in front of the nephilim and framed his face between both palms. “Alec,” he started softly, willing his words to be right, to make him understand how the warlock would never want him to feel that way. “Alec, this” and his hand came to rest over the angel’s heart “is entirely worth all the pain in the world.”

   The nephilim still looked unbelievable sad, more so if possible, and while Magnus was still marvelling at how quickly death had become a constant treat in his life, he added: “Maybe there are a million worlds just like ours, with you and me – well, I like to believe there are - and in those worlds we sometimes meet just once and never talk again. Maybe we never meet at all in some of them,” the warlock stopped and shook his head for a second at the absurdity of it because he could not imagine that world where they would not be drawn to each other like opposing poles of magnets.

   “But I like to believe that there is one world that has us just right. A world in which we meet and spend eternity together – which doesn’t mean that I won’t cherish every moment we share in this life, may it be another day or another decade from now on. It just means that I might just survive the thought of inevitably losing you while keeping a fraction of my sanity. I won’t be whole without you, not by a long shot, but I’ll still remember the tenderness of your heart and the love we share in a hundred years from now without falling into a million tiny pieces. As long as I keep believing that it’s okay if it’s not this world that has us right. Because it does happen, it’s written in stone,” he leaned forward to make their foreheads touch. “Just not in this world.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (20): _On names and their meanings._**

_Alexander_ , the protector. His name fits him like a glove, Magnus mused while watching him fight. It’s in the way he holds himself, more shield than sword (which does not mean that he can’t attack, because isn’t attack the best form of defence after all?)

   His own name is easy to decipher in its meaning. The warlock realized he didn’t put much thought into it beyond the power behind a literally great name. Yet he finds Alexander’s name hold more power than his own, in the oddest way. Of course, Alec holds power over the warlock as well, if he realizes it or not. A name can bind or free someone, cage or drive out into the world, Magnus knows. There is a special kind of magic in a name.

   But, no one ever spoke the warlock’s name in a way that affected him beyond the obvious. Until Alec. With Alec it’s a question of spoken or unspoken, light or heavily; with Alec, in truth, the warlock finds his own name might kill him – though he isn’t sure yet if through kindness or cruelty.

   So, this isn’t the first or the second time they are in bed together. This isn’t even the sixth or the tenth – it’s somewhere between “I’d kill for you” and “I’d die for you” and Magnus think’s its beautiful. They fall into bed all heated passion and barely controlled touches, but that gentles with every shred of clothing they lose, until they’re skin to skin, Alec breathing heavily underneath him. And in their closeness, the warlock’s nose catches on the other’s lip for a second and Alec’s hands have found his hips, holding onto him tightly. Another movement and his angel’s breath hitches – like the very first time – except this time, the name on his lips is not swallowed down, but spoken like a prayer: “ _Magnus._ ” And that’s all the difference that matters, because Magnus might survive his angel’s power yet.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (21): _“I think once you’ve thought about how a person sleeps, how they’d feel pressed up against your back, or your head on their chest, how compatible your bodies would be in the same space of a bed- once you’ve thought about that, you’re fucked.”_** (Found[here)](http://savvylikenahhh.tumblr.com/post/58158492244) **_  
_ **

   Out of the two of them, unsurprisingly, Magnus was by far grumpier in the mornings. Alec thought it hilarious, but the warlock hated the early hours of the day with passion (except if they were more the really late hours of the evening). While their respective sleeping rhythms seemed somewhat problematic to combine in the beginning, neither of them minds it after a while.

   For how could Alec mind a warm body curling up to him in the middle of the night and chase every trace of a nightmare away? Sometimes, Alec would curl up on their bed – and that was still a new thought – alone and leave the warlock to work, but Magnus never stayed away for long and the nephilim was seeking the other’s warmth even in his sleep. There were other times when Magnus was dealing with a quiet dangerous kind of magic, the harder deals to fulfil, and Alec would sleep with the comfort of his lover’s pillow and on the wrong side of the bed. The nightmares came less frequent then, but they were still there and every time Magnus dragged him back from their dark claws, softly whispering in his ear: “You’re safe with me, love, I’ll protect you always.”

   And how could Magnus mind being awoken by tender kisses to his eyelids? More often than not, Alec was long showered and dressed by the time Magnus had barely managed to slide a hand out of his blanket cocoon. The nephilim woke him softly and with such sweet kisses, the warlock found he didn’t mind mornings that much.

They fitted each other so nicely that in the end, being woken up seems more of treat than a bother.


	7. Prompt 22 - 27

**Prompt (22): _You asked me once years ago about our planet’s solar system, I said that it was useless. (Then I saw the universe in your eyes.)_** (Found [here](http://hellopoetry.com/words/18107/solar/poems/))

   They were contently sitting side by side on the roof of Magnus’s apartment building. The sun was just rising, painting the whole world in a faint red-gold glow and prickling softly on the nephilim’s arms. Alec smiled at the sight and turned his head to look at Magnus, who seemed to enjoy staring into the warm glowing distance just as much as the nephilim did. Though, Magnus didn’t actually get to witness the most beautiful aspect of this glorious morning. Because the real view was him, all freshly showered and without the makeup (not that Alec didn’t like it, just that he liked the way Magnus looked without it, too.) It was positively breath-taking how easy the warlock could smile, how gentle the look in his eyes and the sun on his face.

   After a moment, Magnus seemed to realize his being watched and grinned. “What?” he asked still smiling and for a moment Alec was hit again by this feeling that reminded him why the sentiment was called “falling in love” and his breath might have hitched for a second till he had grabbed the other’s shoulders and pushed him to the ground, hovering above him only for a second before aligning their lips. “I love you,” he told him when he came up for air, told him right to his face, meeting his eyes. “I love you.” And there was this weird kind of excitement in the back of his throat that had something of fear and panic, but in the best way possible.

   Magnus must have heard it in his voice. “You say that like it’s painful.” he said, not angry but curious. Alec shook his head. “No. No, it’s perfect.” The nephilim found himself laughing after a second, the feeling in his chest almost too much. He swallowed. “Does it feel the same for you? This feeling… like there-“ “Like a balloon filled with liquid metal that keeps on expanding in your chest and you’re kind of scared it might burst and become painful, but it never does?” Magnus interrupted, his had following the line of Alec’s jaw. When the nephilim nodded, he laughed too. “Every time you laugh, darling. Or blink.”

 

***

 

 **Prompt (23): _Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love._** (Laini Taylor)

   Magnus once tipped Alec’s head back with two of his fingers and inclined his head in a way that made him look so much more feline than human. The shadowhunter followed his touch easily, even when Magnus rose to his knees on the couch and made the height difference so much more prominent. When the warlock leaned down to kiss him filthily, Alec met him perfectly: yielding when Magnus pushed and chasing after him whenever he drew back.

   They broke apart to breathe and when Alec leaned right back in, Magnus’s grip on his jaw tightened slightly to stop him. There was something low and dark in the warlock’s eyes, but the nephilim felt save under his every whim and if he’d get burned because he was foolish to believe a demon, he’d suffer the pain gladly for he’d trust Magnus even then. “How badly I’ve corrupted the angel that came to me in the naïve believe that a demon could be trusted,” the warlock mused darkly, placing his knees on the sides of Alec’s thighs. It was a game they played, one that would startle Alec in the beginning. (Still did most of the time.)

   But the shadowhunter – always surprising Magnus even if you’d think 800 years would make him immune to that – grinned suddenly, a mirror of the look on the warlock’s face. “Oh, I think I did that myself when I seduced the warlock.” At that he leaned up, a hand in Magnus’s hair and pulled back so sharply that it made the other gasp. “And made him mine, so that the demon is in the end as lost to the angel as the angel is to him.” Magnus hummed and craned his neck in a way that must have hurt just to press a kiss to the inside of Alec’s arm.

   “Well, that only seems fair,” the warlock said, trying to keep his to even. But in truth, Alec had like so many times shaken him to the core. But he was fine with it, because if anything he wanted to be the nephilim’s with every fibre of his being. In the end, he had to admit that he quite liked suprises.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (24): _The human mind is such a deranged masterpiece for it allows us to fall back into the same things that will always hurt us._ ** (Found [here](http://xdreamerlovex.tumblr.com/post/96312262974/the-human-mind-is-such-a-deranged-masterpiece%20))

   It still hurt. Losing a beloved. No, losing his very heart might be more precise. Magnus couldn’t follow that train of thought for long, because even if he’d thought that Alec’s death had dulled his emotions to a sheer non-existence of the same, the pain told him it wasn’t true. He’d stop in the middle of the pavement, nowhere in particular, trying to get his body to move again. I love you, the wind whispered sweetly to him and the warlock was helplessly caught under the spell he had a long time ago woven around himself. (When he dared letting that nephilim into his heart)

   He took a breath and another. It wouldn’t pass. But eventually he would move again like it was a habit he couldn’t break and he ought to be thankful for that. Because these days where a blur of dull colours and a void expanding constantly filled with all the things Magnus could never have again: his angel’s smile, his touch, his voice. He’d been gone for so long, the warlock had started counting the decades instead of the days. That didn’t change a thing, though.

   It still hurt. But there was some solace in this in the end, for which creature felt pain like that? Which kind of living thing would love so hard even if knowing that between themselves and their chosen one was only a numbered count of days?

   Only one creature did. One that might find salvation yet. _Humans._

 

***

 

 **Prompt (25): _My life will end and so will yours, so just kiss me anytime._** (A [poem book?](http://snckpck.com/store/kissmeanytime))

   Alec tipped his head up and dragged Magnus down with both hands on his neck to kiss him over the back of the couch in an angle that must have been straining his neck. When they parted Magnus blinked. “Huh. What was that for?” he asked smilingly. Alec mirrored his smile and shrugged, going back to watching TV. There had been some gloomy thought at the corner of his mind just before, but the warlock realized it had been washed away in its wake.

   The next time it happened, Magnus had been doing laundry, when Alec grabbed his arm and made him turn. That kiss might have turned out a bit more passionate than intended. Well, neither of them would complain if the laundry had to wait another few hours.

   The third time, the warlock finally recognized it as a pattern and when they parted, both of them leaning again the kitchen counter, he fixated Alec closely. The other realized his look. “What?” Magnus shook his head. “It’s not that I’m complaining. Really, not at all,” he grinned “but why the sudden shower of kisses today?”

   “I like to kiss you.”

   That made Magnus laugh out loud, not unkindly mind you. Alec smiled at him, sweetly and openly. The warlock still though it such an alluring sight, always would. “And I ought to show you love.” A peck to the corner of his lips. “Because you are loved.” To his cheek. “So very loved.” To his nose. “For everything you are, Magnus Bane.” And there was a wisdom beyond his years in this little nephilim, as the warlock realized quite surprised that the sadness in the corners of his mind must have been very obvious to his little angel.

 

***

 

**Prompt (26): _Fast and Slow_**

   When Magnus sat on the edge of the bed in this hotel halfway across the world, smiling sweetly – him smiling sweetly and looking so young and unguarded and precious – Alec barely listened to his words anymore, but slowly deliberately strode over to where he stood. In a swift moment braced his knees on either side of the warlock’s legs. There was nothing rushed about the kiss, Alec could see Magnus’s pupils dilating – or maybe that was a trick of the light – and he tried to make the kiss tender, conveying what he could not say in words. Deeds came so much easier to him than words, he found.

   The warlock reciprocated eagerly, hands traveling up his tights, down his back, but stopping shy of anything more than that. When they pulled apart, Magnus must have seen the question in his eyes, because he smiled – that damn sweet smile again – and titled his head in a tiny movement to make their noses touch. “You’re feeling bold today, I like it,” the warlock murmured against his cheek. Alec traced the other’s jawline in an attempt to distract himself, maybe control himself and not turn bright scarlet. “Then why did you stop?”

   Magnus pulled back a little and looked directly at him. “I’m not stopping. I just don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” Alec leaned in. “I want-“ “Are you sure?”, Magnus cut it. And he leaned back on the bed, looking up at the shadowhunter. He was all serious. “Because I’m there with you, whatever you want, but I need you to be entirely sure.” The warlock traced his cheekbone with two fingers. “Because in your case I seem to see no appeal in anything that isn’t perfect for you.” And Magnus found that his words were entirely true, that he never had meant anything like the things he told his nephilim.

 

***

 

**Prompt (27): _What makes you smile when you’re tired?_**

   Magnus had no idea, however he had actually managed to make it to his bed before collapsing. He felt like sleeping for an entire week. There were some spells he disliked for a reason, mostly because they were extremely exhausting and draining him of every last bit of power. The warlock fumbled for one of the pillows and found one with a triumphing little noise, instantly curling up around it. Sleep reached for him when the Chairman brushed somewhere near his legs and dragged him under when the cat curled into his side.

  When he woke up, he was still feeling dizzy and drained. The warlock groaned softly, not even bothering to get up or try and do something else than sleep some more. He realized the weight of a second figure on the bed, warmth radiating from that spot and instinctively turned towards its source. A second after warm hand passed through his hair and a soft kiss was pressed to his forehead. Magnus smiled and leaned into the touch.

   “Keep sleeping”, Alec said softly. When the warlock pried open an eye he saw the other sat up against the headboard and had a book resting on his legs. Leaving his tried mind to follow the whims of his body he grabbed for Alec’s leg and curled up against his side. After a second, Alec simply kept running his finger’s trough Magnus hair. The warlock couldn’t be sure, but he might have hear Alec whisper: “Sweet dreams, my love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a very creative week for me, I have to admit... but even when I thought "I don't have enough input for another chapter" I found some bits and pieces anyway. Those are all really short and I'll probably come back to some of these eventually. But we'll see. I'll have something longer in a little while (there is this one plotbunny that keeps expanding on my laptop.) ;)
> 
> Btw: for someone who reads the book series primarily for Malec the 4th book was an awful lot of whining about other pairings. But yay, I finally got around to read another book!


	8. Prompt 28 - 29

**Prompt (28): _Writer’s Challenge: First person narrative._ **

   In the very back of my mind, there is a monster nestling in a dark corner that I cannot fight with bow and arrow. It is far more dangerous than any of those cruel beasts lurking in the shadows which we hunt daily. For most of my life it has choked me and left me little breath. Sometimes so violently that I get physically sick for no reason at all.

   Well, it is reason enough in itself, I suppose.

 

   Mind you, it’s not that my siblings didn’t try to cut this monster down.

   Isabelle used to drag me away from it by my elbows, reminding me that it cannot hurt me if I ignore its nasty claws and teeth altogether. Which isn’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean that I can make it go away with ignorance. Isabelle would sit on my bed in the Institute for nights on end, making me talk for hours. Well, she did most of the actual talking, but that is not the point. My little sister would grab my attention and hold it with all she got, well aware that she was competing with that monster sitting just in the corner of the room.

   She won most of the time. Not every time.

   Max – sweet little Max of eight years – would not understand this monster. However, he was blunter in his way and questioned me about it repeatedly. I never found the words. One day, I told him that it was like gentle touch to your arm or shoulder that felt not exactly kind at first but something like it and then it would lure you under and make everything else fade away. Suddenly, you were drowning in a pitch black sea. He looked so shocked at that and I tried to take it back, but Max moved to hug me and said: “I’d never let you drown.”

   I might have fallen apart then, but the monster whispered: _“Don’t be silly. It’s not that bad. You’re just fine.”_ That alone stopped the tears. Which was a grace and a curse at the same time. (I wish I’d cried back then or maybe told Max how much the words meant. It’s too late to word any of it now.)

 

   For all his bravo, Jace helped most in a way. He could feel the monster too. True, its nagging and luring was less potent and far duller in my parabatai’s head, but very present still. Jace somehow almost understood the moments when I sat in some corner staring at the far wall of the room. _(Everything is so unimportant. So useless. Don’t be daft, you’re just fine. Quit whining little boy, you must be the saddest image of a shadowhunter ever. It’s not just the world which is useless. It’s mostly you.)_

   Jace would tease me about everything and nothing, would demand an extra round of sparring or target practice. We would practise until we were so exhausted that we could barely move. I caught his eye once, when we were both lying on the floor facing the ceiling and mouthed “Thank you.” Jace smiled and shook his head.

   Much like Isabelle, Jace had understood that there was very little else to do about these moods than to wait for them to pass. The monster would grow bored with me every time and fade away. I try not to think too hard about the meaning behind that. _(You’re boring.)_

   Different from Isabelle, Jace called that monster a name. He called it by an name that was an emotion actually and I wasn't sure how I felt about that at first: sadness. I couldn’t fault that name, nor the fact that Jace had chosen to categorize something inside my head, because the rune on both our bodies meant that it was by default in his head too. I never told him, but that made it easier to fight it, because while my own pain seemed a low flaring flame, I’d never let him hurt.

   (Maybe this was where I mistook safety for love.)

 

   It was much like that for as long as I could remember. Me dragging around this monster – this lingering sadness – at the back of my mind and my siblings (once Clary, too) grabbing me and making me stumble back to the very edge of the shadows, holding on to me even though one foot was still knee-deep under water. Then, along came a glittery vision of a warlock, his eyes cat-like and so apt at seeing in the dark.

   He’d see me, even when I almost willingly stepped back into the embrace of this monstrous part of my mind in order to hide in its shadow. He was moving around me, purring softly when I reached for his warmth, still deciding whether this was going to work or not. (But never whether he liked me. Magnus had liked me from the start, he keeps saying. I believe him.)

 

   Funnily enough, Magnus had realized immediately that I wasn’t all light like the rest of them. But he hadn’t seen it as crack in my being or mistake in the fabric of my making. Rather, he’d offered his hand and when I had taken it, the warlock somehow managed to drag me not to the edge of the light but to the very eye of the sun. He’d kiss me and for the first time in my life I felt like I knew true fire and what it was like to hold hands in the sun. It was an emotion so new and bright that it took me a while to call it love.

   But listen, there is no such thing like a magic cure or a final death to all of the mind’s monsters. So I tend to wander into the grey zone between darkness and light now and then. (I even drown occasionally again.) But that is not important. What really matters is that Magnus is right there.

   Without a single fail and without faltering, he holds out his hand and offers the light. Is it weird that a demon would lead an angel back home? No matter, he is the steady current to lead me back. I am slow to take his hand sometimes and only stare at him uncomprehendingly for minutes, but he said once “Time is the one thing I have to offer in extraordinary quantities. You can have all of it, my love.”

   I believe him, because our cracks seem to fit each other so nicely and so might our hearts.

 

***

 

**Prompt (29): _You love him. The story still ends. (found[here](http://soygrl.tumblr.com/post/110807221716/you-love-him-the-story-still-ends)) [Part 1]_**

   The nephilim loved the warlock. He loved the half-demon with all his heart could give. It was painful sometimes just how much, because every hurt in the other’s skin and every worry on his mind was echoed in Alec’s heart. (Lovers know that those are the worst pains.) This emotion spanning between them and wrapped around them so many times that no skin was left uncovered hadn’t always been love.

   It emerged as a fiery spark from a first lock of eyes that had almost not happened, for the angel liked the look of his shoes more. It was the safer view. But as if the universe had meant for it to happen, Alec had looked up and their connection was burning steadily from the start.

 

   They’ve had their fair share of misery and blood spilled between them and the world by the time they first kissed. But their love was honest if it was nothing else and in the end that was what counted. The nephilim loved the warlock and their story was true and real. Alec loved him.

   But there was a looming darkness on the horizon from day one. A vicious sickness called mortality had gripped the one and another far crueller and rare called immortality the other. Neither of those sicknesses can be cured, but it doesn’t matter because lovers always share either or the other in their minds. The tragedy of their story is that they did not.

   So, it was always a fixed point in time which had the nephilim love his warlock from beyond the grave. For what is something human to do against death? It’s all earth to earth and dust to dust. The body buried hasn’t yet lived 40 years and never will anymore. A life cut short far too early. Ironically, Alec is the first to die while Magnus is the only immortal left.

   The ceremony is beautiful in its way, but Magnus doesn't really remember much about it afterwards. Alec’s most beloved didn’t cry, but stood there all silent and stoic. But if the nephilim could have seen his lover then, staying in front of his grave long after all others had left, he would have seen what no one else could see. The only reason why he was not crying is because he had no tears left to give anymore the morning after Alec’s death. He had no emotion at all.

   And here is the terror behind the fact that the nephilim loved the warlock: The warlock loved the nephilim, too. Still loves. That has made him dangerous. For a warlock so powerful and so very in love _(so lost)_ is a terrible thing, indeed.

 

   So in a way, it’s not much of a surprise when Alec wakes up in Magnus’s arms again, after days of darkness. The warlock was smiling so sweetly at him. “I’m sorry.”, he whispers against his angel’s hair a second later when he is hugging Alec so fiercely, the nephilim thinks he might want to melt the two of you into one being.

   “I couldn’t let you go. I thought I could. But I couldn’t.” And he was crying, his voice shaking, barely coherent after that.

   Alec’s treacherous arms were all stiff like he haven’t moved them in ages. He reached up. The nephilim didn’t understand for another minute, because his mind was a muddled mess of thoughts and sparks. The only thing that he comprehended immediately was that Magnus was terribly sad and he should not be sad and seeing him hurt was physically painful to Alec. For a second he felt like a child when the rational part of his brain caught up with the babbling mutterings of his heart.

   “Magnus,” his voice was raspy. “It’s alright.” Because what else was there to say when his beloved was breaking apart? There was a shudder that might have been a hollow laugh passing through the warlock.

   It took a little longer until the shaking of his frame fades to not-quite-normal breathing, but Magnus made no move to let Alec go from his tight embrace. The nephilim’s eyes still swam in and out of focus in a dark room. “Magnus”, he tried again. “Where…?” Alec wasn’t sure that was the correct question to ask, because he was only slowly starting to piece things together and the only reason he wasn’t wild from panic was the warlock’s presence at his side.

 

   When the other finally loosened his embrace, he only muttered something like “Come, I’ll help you up.” Together you managed the transition into a standing position. The second Magnus let go of him, Alec swayed on his feet and the other’s hands were back on him. Slowly, they walked out of the dark room, through a barely illuminated hallway. When he turned to look at the walls and the ground, something inside him soared with the feeling of home. But everything was all rubble and ash. What was this place and why was it so familiar?

   When the hallway leaded into a bigger room (and there is no door, but frayed edges, broken stones and glass) the brightness blinded Alec for a second. Then they stood in an open space. Magnus drew his hand away from the nephilim’s very suddenly. Instinctively, Alec tried to grab it, but Magnus stepped back and just out of reach. The nephilim tried to meet his eyes, but Magnus decidedly angled his face away. Alec couldn’t fail to notice, there was something impossibly sad in the other’s face.

   He turned to take in the room, now that his eyes adjusted to the light. Alec realized then where they were. What this place was. It looked like a battlefield. The New York Institute was lying in ruins. The raggedy lumps scattered around the room were bodies. Alec dared not to look any closer. But he spied a werewolf and a faery and – naturally - shadowhunters. He forced his eyes to his shoes. _(They were still boring shoes.)_

   “No one you know,” Magnus said, his voice distant. “Not that it makes it any better.”

 

   Alec had a million questions like: Who fought here? What happened? Why are they dead? Eventually he settled on something that isn’t a question at all.

   “I died.”

   He turned back towards Magnus at that and the warlock won’t look away in that moment. “Yes.” the other stated matter-of-factly as if talking about the weather or something like that. For a moment, Alec felt himself brimming with white hot anger and fury licks at the back of his throat.

   Then, he really looked at Magnus. The warlock was dressed in dark-blue and black, his long coat cut flowingly around his slender frame. There were golden buttons that matched the colour of his shoes and Magnus was wearing some necklace that looked faintly familiar. His hair was barely spiked up, his face almost without makeup. There was grime and dirt all over him, some on the left side of his neck rising high up to his cheekbone. These clothes were so boring and plain and nothing like him – and the nephilim wouldn’t believe it was him at all if his eyes weren’t the very same as the image imprinted to the back of his eyelids.

   Alec saw something that scared him then: There was something in Magnus face that told him that he was older than when they last met. Not only a few years, but older. It hadn’t been days of darkness.

   “I died.” he said again, but it wasn’t a judgement again, not anger towards what Magnus must have done, but sadness for what he must have felt. Alec felt something like panic rise in his chest, only it wasn’t exactly that.

   He took the two or three steps the warlock put between them before and reached to the side of his neck, wiping away ashes. Magnus arms took him in again and Alec didn’t fight his touch for one second. “Tell me,” he demanded in their embrace on top of the ashes of this place. “Tell me all of it.” Magnus talked for quite a while.

 

   Later, they sit next to each other somewhere in the rubble where a big chunk of what might have been a pillar lies on the ground. To Alec everything feels surreal. But most of all, the most surreal, was that Magnus who had been cradling him so sweetly a few hours ago, suddenly seemed to keep his distance.

   “What changed in the last few hours?” he asked bluntly, as that still seemed to be him: direct and honest. Magnus didn’t even pretend not to understand the question, must have the urge to just reach over and touch him quite as strongly as Alec himself does for his hand twitches and his muscles tense.

   “There is few laws that bind magic in the end which really matter. Death is one of them. I broke it without hesitation and would have done it sooner had I known how,” the warlock was not looking at him.

   “I don’t know yet what the price is, but I know it has to be terrible and I fear the only thing that could balance having you back is losing you again.” In the early days of their relationship the warlock wouldn’t be so frank about things, would hide away this and that. That had changed later of course, but never completely, till just now. Magnus looked at him.

   “You have no idea how good it is to see you,” he said more quietly. “But I am entirely undeserving this time.”

 

   The nephilim wouldn’t have any of it and straddled the other abruptly, clumsily because of the lack of space and had the warlock’s hands not come up to steady him around the hips, he might have fallen off quite gracelessly. But he didn’t, so using the momentum of the movement, he leaned down to kiss the other and was proven correct: Magnus had been dying to touch him.

   They kissed like it was the first and the last time combined, soaking in the gift that was their meeting again, all consequences be damned. At least for that moment. Alec held the others face between his palms, remembering a conversation long ago that might have had reversed positions.

   “You’re wrong,” he said simply, and he lacked the ability to put it all into words, so he used the words which he knew would make the warlock understand: _“I love you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still stuck at the beginning of Lost Souls. I dare not read it. As always my dear silent readers (I adore you none the less and just know this: I smile over every single kudo ;) ) I encourage you to send me prompts, even if I'm still trying to develop some writing skills. And while you're at it, give me opinions about this slighty different formating. (To many paragraphes now? To little?)


	9. Prompt 30 - 33

**Prompt (30): _“Sometimes a deal with the devil is better than no deal at all.”_** (Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name) [AU]

   The boy stood a good few steps away, keeping his distance from the demon. Magnus smiled at him, maybe a bit too darkly considering that he saw a muscle close to the other's jaw jump. Oh, this one was _delicious_. He was all white skin and dark hair, the vibrant blue of his eyes shining in stark contrast to his black-and-white appearance. Really he was like from an old movie. Only the boy clearly hated being part of the scenery around him. Ironically, he fit into Magnus’s bedroom perfectly.

   The demon prided himself on having an exquisite taste all the time, but in this moment he was unusually impressed with himself. The colour of the curtains and the upholstery of his armchair would flatter the blush sitting high on the boy’s cheeks so nicely. (The _bedsheets_ , too. Oh, that skin against dark red.) It was almost as if he had known that fate would present him with that handsome boy. Which he didn't, but the appearance was all the more pleasant through the suprise. Some bargains, Magnus thought idly while leaning back in his chair, might be entirely too good to pass on.

 

   “So what do you want from me in return?” asked the youth across the room before Magnus had even agreed to anything. But then again, the demon admitted in quiet, it must have shown on his face just how pleased he was. Not that he wasn't trying to hide that particular emotion very much. The boy was so young, the demon mused. The other fumbled with his sleeves for a second until he thought better of it and straightened up in false confidence. Young and brave then? No, foolish. _Foolish, little boy._ _I’m going to make you scream._ “Oh, all those things demons want,” Magnus found himself saying, his grin only have hidden behind the hand he used to prop up his head on his knee. 

   “So what? You want to fuck me?” Magnus blinked. Huh. So blunt. How unexpected of a human. The expression of surprise might have shown on his face for a second, because the boy’s eyes shone with something like pride. But the demon wondered about him again when he regarded that look. There was no cruelty in that expression, none at all.

_(And shouldn’t the boy take some cruel pleasure in catching him of guard? Wasn’t he aware then of what it was he was offering?)_

   Magnus didn’t make deals anymore. He had no use for wealth or power, because everything he could ever need was only one snap of his fingers away. Humans couldn’t understand how pointless all of their petty little wars were in truth. Their lives where so short. The demon knew though, nothing ever lasted. So where was the use in acquiring something fickle like power or wealth in the first place? But this boy, pleading for the change to save his family, stirred something in him that he had thought dead.

   “Come here,” the demon held out his hand. The hesitation in the other was short, though Magnus was sure that was in order to hide any flattering courage. The boy came over and Magnus dragged him down to sit on his lap, which made the boy stutter and try to move away, but the demon had him tight around his waist.

_(Wasn’t this the point where he should feel cruel pleasure himself?)_

   When the boy stopped struggling, he held entirely still, his eyes dropped and shoulder hunched. Magnus couldn’t help but think that this boy must fold himself in all the time to be able to shrink just like that. A warrior that lived in the shadows. With fingers under his chin he made the boy look up and grinned. “Go on, kiss me then.”

 

   A second passed and then another, and the boy still hadn’t moved. “You’re not going to change your mind now, are you boy?” “D-don’t call me that… I’m not a child,” he murmured and almost as if accidentally his eyes dropped to the demon’s lips for a second before the boy quickly closed his eyes. He swallowed. Magnus let his free hand wander easily, harmlessly high on the other’s spine, his shoulder blades. “If I thought of you as a child, we wouldn't be in this position," Magnus told him honestly. "What would you have me call then?” he asked after another moment, feeling indulgent and oddly kind. 

   “Alec.” The boy – Alec – had a stuttering heart right against Magnus chest. He was so sweet with his rosy cheeks and the way his embarrassment showed so easy in his voice, and those eyes that wouldn’t meet his look. The other’s body was shaking slightly against him, while Alec tried to find a spot somewhere on the ground to fixate on. Magnus would not have it, held out on him. The boy seemed to realize after endless seconds and his eyes flickered past the demon’s face twice, before settling.

   Oh my, those eyes. The demon could just eat him up whole. (Not that he would. That would be such a shame.) “What of my kiss now?” he asked again and Alec eyes dropped away immediately. “I haven’t – I don’t know to _kissanybodyproperly._ ” The last of his words all slurred together when his speech came out so quickly that it took Magnus another second to comprehend. “Wait you’re telling me, you have never even kissed anyone?” Magnus asked unbelieving. Alec nodded shyly and wasn’t that the most innocent thing? How rare a combination this human was: all direct honesty and shy reserve. “But you wanted to?”

   At that the boy ducked his head even further, hiding an expression that was not lost to the demon. Ah, maybe more something like shy _passion_ then? Magnus chuckled. He was so _delightful._ “You’re such an impossible thing,” he told him, mind you not fondly, it wasn’t fondness in his voice. And as if to convince himself that the boy had not already slipped in under the wire and found a place far too close to whatever was left of his heart, he leaning in and was kissing him deeply, maybe a little too roughly. The body gasped in surprise, but adapted beautifully. Magnus was surprised at how naturally – yet clumsy, quite a lot so, but wasn’t that to be expected – the boy melted into him. When they pulled apart, he couldn’t help but grin in spite of their noses bumping.

   "Alright, then. Let's make a deal." This was going to be so _perfect._

 

***

 

**Prompt (31): _You’re all mine_**

   “Have you thought about this?” Magnus asked, the shadowhunter splayed out underneath him on the bed. The warlocks legs where caging Alec’s thighs. “What is it you want? Whatever it is, it’s all yours.” Alec looked up for him for a second, his face flushed and spluttered, then laughed softly.

   “I don’t – I’m not-“ he broke off with a groan. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know.” When he finally looked at Magnus again there was a clearness in his eyes: “But it’s all you, anyway. Anything.” And the warlock wanted to tell him how Alec didn’t know what he was promising, had no idea what he was giving away-

   "What did you think about?” the nephilim asked quietly. Magnus grinned. (But he wouldn’t indulge the darker corner of his mind. Alec was the light and so he belonged in those parts of him, in his heart that would protect him from any harm, that wouldn’t make him want anything but pleasure for the nephilim anyway.) His mind tattered over a few things deeming them too much, too soon or too little maybe.

   When he found something, he was surprised at himself for a moment, his voice dropped of his own account. “Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded and his hand followed the curve of the other’s neck. He expected some reaction surely, but not the way Alec looked up at him, so honest and real: “I’m yours.” Magnus’s breath hitched. Oh, that could become quite a thing for him. “You’re all fucking mine,” he breathed and Alec leaned into his touch easily. The nephilim melted against Magnus in content at being right here. So very trusting. Alec’s lips pressed against his skin, proclaiming repeatedly: _“I’m yours. I’m all yours.”_

 

***

 

 **Prompt (32): _“There are devilish thoughts even in the most angelic minds."_** (Rachel Wolchin)

   Who would have thought that this man straddling his tights and swirling his tongue around two of his fingers could be a creature this passionate? There was a spark in the other’s eyes that was vibrantly blue, even if his pupils where blown to almost entirely swallow up his irises. Alec abandoned the warlock’s fingers in favour of kissing him – he picked up things quickly didn’t he? Magnus moaned against his lips chasing after him, but Alec stopped him with a hand on his chest.

  
   “ _Magnus_ ,” his little nephilim breathed and oh that tone did things to him. And Magnus could have moaned again – did, too. Alec smirked and the warlock thought that there really wasn’t much of an angel in him right now.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (33): _“Before you say yes, get him angry. See him scared, see him wanting, see him sick. Stress changes a person.”_** ([“My father’s recipe for the man I should marry”](http://inkskinned.tumblr.com/post/77095246627/1-date-a-boy-who-makes-you-happy-but-marry-him))

_Part (1/4): **Scared**_

   Alec was out hunting a lot these days. Maybe that was why it took him so long to realize how restless Magnus what becoming at times. How the warlock would start something and disregard it after a minute or two, only to start doing something else and almost literally dropping it where he stood another moment later. The nephilim didn’t think much of it at first, thought that maybe it was just an odd habit, but the shattering of the third cup in as many days was causing some alarm bells in his head to ring.

   At first, Alec doesn’t understand what these moods mean, and they come and pass in odd rhythms. Sometimes they last a day, other’s a week with several months in between. Then there was a week when the warlock dips in and out of such a mannerism four times. The nephilim wraps his arms around him them, trapping the other effectively as far as non-magic movement goes, causing the warlock to tense all over.

   “Talk to me,” Alec whispered imploringly against the others shoulder.

   “Please. Can you tell me what is happening?” Somehow the words were right, because Magnus melted into him then and talked.

 

   After that Magnus would seek him out and curl into him whenever he felt distracted like that, Alec by then knowing these moods and asking quietly: “Is there anything I can do?” and Magnus softly shaking his head after hesitating briefly, coming impossibly closer.

   “Just stay right here,” the warlock murmured quietly while the nephilim arranged them on the couch. With a soft kiss to his forehead, Alec answered what was never a question anyway: “Of course.”

 

   There was nothing much to say, because Magnus had quite willingly offered up an explanation that covered all and at the same time very little of the problem. So the gist is this: In 800 years there are a lot of things you forget, but they never leave completely, its images and sounds and specifics that fade away, never the feelings behind a situation. Those moments were those nagging little things catching up with the warlock and when Alec asked if it was sadness or melancholy, Magnus shook his head softly and looked impossibly tired in that moment.

   “Fear,” he admitted quietly and the nephilim felt his heart ache in sympathy. He wanted nothing more than protect the warlock from this, but knew he couldn’t. (Those where Magnus's demons and his alone. The warlock had to battle them on his own and that without even seeing their faces.)

   “You being here helps,” Magnus told him more than once. “It helps a lot.” Alec tries to believe him. 

   So whenever Magnus gets that look on his face, Alec wrapped his arms around him tightly, thinking all those sweet nothings at him, hoping that maybe just maybe they would carry through the air, like poppy seeds, nestling softly in the space between his heart and his head, blossoming warmth and telling the warlock: _I’ll always be here, I’ll never really leave. You needn’t fear anything, I’ll guard all of you._

 

_(And a really quiet voice at the back of Alec's head leaves the echo of Magnus's fear thousandfold, whispering: One day you will add to his pain.)_

 

*

 

 _Part (2/4):_ **Angry**

   Magnus’s hand came down at the counter hard, the sound almost painful in itself. Alec imagined the hurt like tiny parachutes opening up just underneath the skin and pulsing in barely there, but quick sharp pain. They were positioned in opposite corners of the kitchen, the heat between them angry and bitter for once. It wasn’t even important, such a tiny thing. There was no need to fight about something so unimportant. Alec tried to meet Magnus eyes, but he seemed to try and stare holes into the ground, controlling the anger. Again. Like every single time they fought.

   Alec had been holding onto his calmness, tried to let the anger fizzle out bit by bit, but at that one thought – he’s holding back again – he exploded: “Stop doing that!” Magnus eyes settled on him with a furious edge. “Doing what?” the warlock almost spat, clearly also starting to lose his temper. But that was not enough. “Be angry with me! Don’t just internalize that stuff!”

   “Oh that’s a big word, little nephilim,” Magnus mocked and in a stride he stood so close, all Alec had to do was reach out to touch. The nephilim would have expected sparks at the others finger tips, yelling and raging. But this was worse indefinitely. “What would you have me do then, yell at you?” The tone of his voice left Alec with a very cold feeling.

   “Tell me why you’re angry with me,” demanded Alec, his voice steady. Even when Magnus crowded him against the counter by the fridge, the nephilim would not back down. Though he wanted to flee quite badly for a second. The warlock’s anger was all ice, not burning or fizzling in a corner, but dead-cold ice that could hurt your skin with a single look, a single touch. It was almost fear that creeped into the corner of Alec’s mind.

 

   “You lied to me,” the warlock stated simply, detached and cold.

   “I did not-“

   “And you keep digging your hole deeper,” Magnus interrupted immediately, eyes hard. Alec took a breath and let it out, pressing his lips together tightly. After a moment of silence the warlock continued, approving of Alec’s choice to stay silent.

   “You were hurt and told me you were just fine. You lied to me. Without hesitation,” which was not true, which hurt Alec. “Not badly either.” _(That hurt worse.)_

   “It doesn’t matter what it was. No matter how little the thing you are lying about. It makes me angry that you think I won’t notice or care,” at that something wavered in Magnus’s voice for a second, the ice already melting away. The nephilim had been wrong, it wasn’t the anger that would hurt him most.

   “It makes me scared of what else you are lying about.”

 

   Alec had grabbed the other’s arm before deciding so, wincing at his own action and drawing back immediately, but Magnus caught him skin on skin. And the touch didn’t burn at all. The ice would not harm him even a little. (But the pain in the other’s voice might.) “I ask not that you tell me everything, even if I hope you trust me enough to tell me most things. I ask that you won’t lie to me.” And after a moment, as if the rest of the words were an offering that was hard for Magnus to make. “I’d rather have you say nothing than lie.”

   The nephilim caught the feeling of something stuttering in his chest. Their eyes had found each other and Alec said softly without breaking away: “I’m sorry.” - willing the words to be much more than an apology. 

   A smile played over the warlocks features a second later, sad and lost and then utterly in love. “You’re forgiven, my love. As always.”


	10. Prompt 34 - 38

**Prompt: _Noise_**

   In the end, surprisingly Alec is noisy in his pleasure.

  
Alec would whine and moan, every touch electric to his skin. Magnus would be effected much the same, there was just something about the two of them that fit together like they were always meant to be. A little raggedy around the edges, a little grinding at times, but always them, always falling right into place. So when Magnus had him spread out on the couch in a heated few kisses turning desperate so quickly, Alec gasped at all those little touches, arched up into him and urged him on.

  
    “Magnus, come on,” the words would be accompanied by a sharp tug in the warlock’s hair, wandering hands that weren’t quite as shy anymore as they used to be. But Magnus would prevent him from rising any further than a few centimetres. He liked having his angel like this a lot.

  
    “Mag- _ah_.” His breath caught and the warlock stilled against him, Alec blindly reached for his face, kissing him sloppily. “Alec-“ “So good. Come on, Magnus. Move. It’s so good, perfect,” the nephilim kept murmuring the words against the other’s lips, neck again and again. “You’re not hurting me. Come on.” Magnus still worried, but the nephilim always knew how to move just right. The warlock briefly wondered if this was what it felt like being wrapped around someone’s finger.

   He found he might not care.

 

***

 

 **Prompt: _Cafuné – Running your fingers through your lover’s hair._** (This turned out way more sexy than I intended.)

  
    This was what going mad had to feel like, Alec was sure of it. Above him Magnus chuckled. “So dramatic, darling,” he murmured right behind the nephilim’s ear as an answer to something Alec hadn’t even realized he’d voiced out loud. The younger groaned and dropped his head between his arms that were stretched out above his head, hands firmly secured around the headboard. There was nothing in the world but this, nothing but the warlock against him.

  
    Magnus was draped over his back, pressing closer to eliminate any space between their bodies from chest-shoulder blades to outer-inner ankles. The warlock held entirely still while waiting for Alec to get adjusted to the intrusion. And then longer. “Magnus,” Alec whined when the other gripped his hips tightly, pulled him against the line of his body, but did not move. Idly, the warlock placed open-mouthed kisses to the back of his neck and shoulders. “Breathe, Alec,” he commanded softly and the nephilim hadn’t realized how irregular the gulps of air he’d been taking were either. He didn’t seem to be aware of anything much right now, when Magnus was right there and so very deep inside him and would not fucking move.

  
    Then the warlock sat back and took the other with him, making both of them move and the nephilim’s breath hitched – oh that was a delicious. Alec felt like he might melt. “Magnus. Magnus, please,” Alec whispered feverishly, feeling like his nerves where on complete overload and yet he was turning his head for a kiss. “Please. I can’t.” His voice rose dangerously on the last syllable, while his treacherous body was trying to get closer to the other still. The tremble in his own body echoed back in Magnus. “Please. It’s too much, _please_.”

  
    The warlock hushed him with tender hands and kissed him gently, deeply. “I have you, my love. You’re alright.” And his body seemed to disagree with his words, because Alec was completely compliant to Magnus’s movements after all. “Okay?” the warlock asked after another second, a shuddering sound drawn from Alec’s lips. The nephilim reached back his fingers catching in Magnus’s hair, tugging none too gently. He finally got to connect their lips himself. _“Yes.”_

 

***

 

**Prompt: _“Before you say yes, get him angry. See him scared, see him wanting, see him sick. Stress changes a person.” (inkskinned, “My father’s recipe for the man I should marry”)_**

  
_**Part (1/4): Fear**_

  
    Alec was out hunting a lot these days. Maybe that was why it took him so long to realize how restless Magnus what becoming at times. How the warlock would start something a disregard it after a minute or two, only to start doing something else and almost literally dropping it where he stood another moment later. The nephilim didn’t think much of it at first, thought that maybe it was Magnus being Magnus, but the shattering of the third cup in as many days was causing some alarm bells in his head to ring.

   At first, Alec doesn’t understand what these moods mean, and they come and pass in odd rhythms. Sometimes they last a day, other’s a week with several months in between. Then there is a week when the warlock dips in and out of such a mannerism four times. The nephilim wraps his arms around him them, trapping the other effectively as far as non-magic movement goes, causing the warlock to tense all over. “Talk to me,” Alec whispers imploringly against the others shoulder. “Please. Can you tell me what is happening?” Somehow the words are right, because Magnus melts into him then and talks.

  
    After that Magnus would seek him out and curl into him whenever he felt distracted like that, Alec by then knowing these moods and asking quietly: “Is there anything I can do?” and Magnus softly shaking his head after hesitating briefly, coming impossibly closer. “Just stay right here,” the warlock murmured quietly while the nephilim arranged them on the couch. With a soft kiss to his forehead, Alec answered what was never a question. “Of course.”

  
    There was nothing much to say, because Magnus had quite willingly offered up an explanation that covered all and very little of the problem. So the gist is this: In 800 years there are a lot of things you forget, but they never leave completely, its images and sounds and specifics that fade away, never the feelings behind a situation. Those moments were those nagging little things catching up with the warlock and when Alec asked if it was sadness or melancholy, Magnus shook his head softly and looked impossibly tired in that moment. “Fear,” he admitted quietly and the nephilim felt his heart ache in sympathy. He wanted nothing more than protect the warlock from this, but knew he couldn’t. “You being here helps,” Magnus told him more than once. “It helps a lot.”

  
    So whenever Magnus got that look on his face, Alec wrapped his arms around him tightly, thinking all those sweet nothings at him, hoping that maybe just maybe they would carry through the air, like poppy seeds, nestling softly in the space between his heart and his head, blossoming warmth and telling the warlock: I’ll always be here, I’ll never really leave. You needn’t fear anything, I’ll guard all of you.

 

***

  
_**Part (2): Anger**_

  
    Magnus’s hand came down at the counter hard, the sound almost painful in itself. Alec imagined the hurt like tiny parachutes opening up just underneath the skin and pulsing in barely there, but quick sharp pain. They were positioned in opposite corners of the kitchen, the heat between them angry and bitter for once. It wasn’t even important, such a tiny thing. There was no need to fight about something so unimportant. Alec tried to meet Magnus eyes, but he seemed to try and stare holes into the ground, controlling the anger. Again. Like every single time they fought.

  
    Alec had been holding onto his calmness, tried to let the anger fizzle out bit by bit, but at that one thought – he’s holding back again – he exploded: “Stop doing that!” Magnus eyes settled on him with a furious edge. “Doing what?” the warlock almost spat, clearly also starting to lose his temper. But that was not enough. “Be angry with me! Don’t just internalize that stuff!”

  
    “Oh that’s a big word little nephilim,” Magnus mocked and in a stride he stood so close, all Alec had to do was reach out to touch. The nephilim would have expected sparks at the others finger tips, yelling and raging. But this was worse indefinitely. “What would you have me do then, yell at you?” The tone of his voice left Alec with a very cold feeling.

  
    “Tell me why you’re angry with me,” demanded Alec, his voice steady. Even when Magnus crowded him against the counter by the fridge, the nephilim would not back down. Though he wanted to flee quite badly for a second. The warlock’s anger was all ice, not burning or fizzling in a corner, but dead-cold ice that could hurt your skin with a single look, a single touch. It was almost fear that creeped into the corner of Alec’s mind.

 

   “You lied to me,” the warlock stated simply, detached and cold.

   “I did not-“

   “And you keep digging your hole deeper,” Magnus interrupted immediately, eyes hard. Alec took a breath and let it out, pressing his lips together tightly. After a moment of silence the warlock continued, approving of Alec’s choice to stay silent. “You were hurt and told me you were just fine. You lied to me. Without hesitation,” which was not true, which hurt Alec. “Not badly either.” _(That hurt worse.)_

  
    “It doesn’t matter what it was. No matter how little the thing you are lying about. It makes me angry that you think I won’t notice or care,” at that something wavered in Magnus’s voice for a second, the ice already melting away. The nephilim had been wrong, it wasn’t the anger that would hurt him most. “It makes me scared for what else you are lying about.”

  
    Alec had grabbed the other’s arm before deciding so, wincing at his own action and drawing back immediately, but Magnus caught him skin on skin. And the touch didn’t burn at all. The ice would not harm him even a little. (But the pain in the other’s voice might.) “I ask not that you tell me everything, even if I hope you trust me enough to tell me most things. I ask that you won’t lie to me.” And after a moment, as if the rest of the words were an offering that was hard for Magnus to make. “I’d rather have you say nothing than lie.”

  
    The nephilim caught feel something stuttering in his chest. Their eyes had found each other and Alec said softly without breaking away: “I’m sorry.” A smile played over the warlocks features a second later, sad and lost and then utterly in love. “You’re forgiven, my love. As always.”

 

***

_**Part (3): Want** _

  
    Alec was no dancer. He was no dancer at all. Magnus dragged him to the dancefloor regardless of this fact. The warlock insisted there was no such thing as cannot dance. Alec wasn’t convinced and the two legs attached to his body seemed to agree. In spite of any balance runes he could think of before Magnus had made him go to this club with him, this was indeed more of a stumble than an actual dance.

  
    The noise in the club was almost deafening, the place too crowded for Alec’s liking and he wondered briefly whether those lights could cause some kind of short circuit in his brain. But the nephilim didn’t mind any of that too much. Not that Alec would ever admit it, but dancing served him fine as an excuse to have Magnus pressed this close to him. (And he needn’t worry all that much that they’d be seen with that many people around them being solely interested in themselves or simplify carefree as to who Magnus and Alec were). No, Alec decided, this was not half bad. Especially while the warlock looked positively gorgeous while moving his body in a way that seemed so natural and also very, very sexy. However, the nephilimwould deny any such thoughts in combination with the dancefloor immediately if questioned. Magnus seemed to know anyway and his grin turned soft every other minute.

  
    Alec found himself echoing that expression almost subconsciously. It wasn’t like he was trying very hard to convince Magnus of any displeasure. The warlock leaned in suddenly and sung along to whatever tune was playing right then, his lips brushing the shell of Alec’s ear: “I’m better under your reflection, but did you know that’s anybody else that’s met you?” Thankfully the darkness made the redness of his face less obvious.

  
*

  
    “I mean it, you know,” Magnus said later, when they were standing at some bar. “You have this way of making people want to be better.”

   Alec could almost feel the blush that spread across his face. “Thank you,” he mumbled, dropping his eyes. And he thought the conversation over with that, but the warlock’s smile morphed into something more serious and he asked quietly: “Why is it you do not believe me?”

  
    The nephilim didn’t answer for a minute, had no intention of ever doing so to be honest. Alec wasn’t sure he was quite ready to let Magnus see that much of him (not that the warlock did not do a great job of figuring him out by himself). There was no need to open that particular door tonight. Just as Alec came up with some half-witty remark, the other seemed to have pity on him.

  
    “Maybe it’s because you make me want to be very bad as well,” Magnus teased grinning a second too late. Alec swallowed.

  
*

  
    They were dancing again – how did Magnus manage to convince him this time? – Until they very decidedly weren’t. The warlock was backing Alec into a wall outside the club, kissing him deeply, his hands wandering. There was a hard edge to him then, something like pure need and Alec wasn’t sure he could keep up with that. Magnus broke away suddenly, his hands fisted into the fabric at Alec’s sides, his forehead resting on the nephilim’s shoulder. His breathing was unsteady and he was clearly trying to get a grip of himself.

  
    Magnus cursed quietly. “How do you do that?” he asked, but Alec thought it was a rhetorical question anyway. “You just-“ He cut himself off, whatever he was going to say ended in a laugh that was a bit darker than usual. Alec was dimly aware he should be scared by this behaviour but he wasn’t- he realized he already trusted the warlock with his life and thought: _Shit._

   The warlock met his eyes and Alec wanted to shy away then, because he didn’t know a look could be quiet so intense, seeing right through him. “God, I want you,” Magnus admitted quietly not looking away. “You have no idea how much.” But he didn’t lean back in, instead he let go of him completely. “Come on,” he said, voice lighter suddenly. “I’ll walk you home.”

 

 


	11. Prompt 39 - 45

**Prompt: _Without out you darling, I’m blind_** _(Blind by Built by Train)_

Magnus thinks sometimes that somehow, without him all the colours had been duller. It was as if a veil had covered the world, tinting all the briskness just the slightest bit grey. The only reason he had never sought to unveil the world was because until right the moment that their eyes met, the warlock hadn’t known that blue could be a colour so bright.

So if the dawn was suddenly an inferno in the distant sky, the particles of the atmosphere seemingly dancing while they were soiling the bright sunlight, as if some higher power was soaring in happiness about two pawns in it’s great game having found their positions in this endless big universe, that was all the angel’s fault.

And if suddenly the moonlight was a bit more stark white on someone’s skin to Magnus, almost a reflections of radiation and glowing power that was the angel’s fault too.

And if these sheets, no matter how often Magnus changed their colour complimented the other just right, in a way, that was the angel’s fault, too. _(Moaning so sweetly.)_

  
In all fairness though, it has to be mentioned that if the touch of their hands sparked a little brighter too, and the blue of his magic curling gently around another set of fingertips suddenly had changed their colour to meet another very bright, very close blue, that might have been the warlock’s fault. A bit.

 

 ***

 

 **Prompt:** _**Forever’s Price** (Maybe Part 1?)  
_

  
Alec’s whole body is aching in the echo of a pain that is all centred in his chest where a gaping whole has left him finally an only child (- he’s never been that, never thought he would, he’s the oldest.) He is cluttering apart and the only reason he isn’t mad by now is that Magnus has his arms so tight around him it is very much suffocating. Alec hears himself give a noise like a wounded animal, but he is detached from his body and he cannot feel a thing.

“Alec” He is breathing too fast. Is that way too fast? Does it matter?

“Alec, please”, the voice is dull like far away, but so familiar. Way too familiar. Alec would listen to it, it’s so nice and calm, but he can’t breathe. He struggles with the someone’s arms trying to catch him. 

“Alec, I need you to listen to me,” Magnus says very clearly to his face and when their eyes connect the words come up like air from under water and they make sense a second later.

“My love, please, look at me.”

Alec does. He looks. And there is tears in the other’s eyes. His fingers grab the fabric of something glittery and it’s a harsh feeling beneath his fingertips. “Magnus?” his own voice sounds hollow in his ears, but the warlock seems to breathe in at the noise anyway. “Yes,” the warlock stars with an almost-stumbling voice.

But the grip Magnus’s voice has on him is short-lived. Alec looks over his shoulder where crumbled bodies lie. It doesn’t even register to his mind, but his legs give in the moment the broken mess of bones makes sense.

Alec tries to breathe in and breathe in, but the oxygen won’t catch as if he isn’t fit to live in this atmosphere anymore. Not that it matters. The pain is far away and the only think keeping him conscious are the pair of hands on his body, dragging him bodily away from the scene.

_It’s a cruel deal. Saving only one of them all. Worse is saving the one stepping forward to take the blame on himself._

 

***

 

**Prompt: _Toothpaste_**

  
When Magnus brushes his teeth, he finds that it is indeed distracting to have a gorgeous half-naked shadowhunter perched on the edge of the bathtub right behind him. Very much so. He stares openly at the reflection in the mirror in front of him, because why would he not?

Alec is lazily rolling his head to the left and then back to the right in a half circle. One of his hands comes up to rub the back of his neck in a movement that seems designed to erase the discomfort of a sore muscle. His eyes are unfocused, half-closed in contend and already strands of his wet hair have fallen back into his face even if he had slicked them back with a half aborted movement before when Magnus was kneeling on the floor of the shower and-

The warlock is startled out of that thought when he realizes the nephilim is staring right back at him. There is a grin – no, more of a wicked smile on his face as he leans forward, elbows resting just above his knees, head coming to sit atop the cup of a palm. There is so many fascinating facets to his own personal, very original and unique Alec Lightwood.

It was almost a shame, Magnus admits to himself, that a whole colour shade within the rainbow (oh shut up, he was allowed to be corny) that his nephilim was only visible when they were just the two of them. Almost, mind you.

After quickly rising his mouth, he snatched the nephilim by the upper arm and dragged him in for a kiss that had Alec chuckling against his lips, moving easily to meet him. The warlock found he cherished those expressions, words and touches more that were exclusively his. Magnus wasn’t keen on sharing anyway.

When they broke apart Alec murmured against his lips: “You know kissing me again kind of defeated the purpose of brushing your teeth after- _our shower_.” Magnus laughed.

 

***

 

**Prompt: _Where pain hurts worst._**

  
“This is going to hurt”, Magnus tells him, leaning over him to hold him down with an arm over his collarbone. Alec swears he can feel the demon blood traveling in his veins, can feel it like ice spreading and swallowing the warmth. The poison is taking hold far too quickly, he’d only been a bit to slow a moment hesitant because Isabelle could have been hit- “Izzy-“

“I’m alright”, says his sister from somewhere near. He can tell she wants to move in, but Magnus stops her with a lifted hand. “I’ll try and be quick. But it’s going to hurt”, Magnus tells him again, a warning that Alec feels unnecessary because it’s not like he can pull away anyway. The stone ground is hard against his back, Alec presses back on it more, needing a grounding point.

The warlock’s hands are hovering over his side, blue sparking lights moving around them. Alec breathes shudderingly and clicks his teeth together. He nods at Magnus, trying for reassuring, but it’s painful to move anything at all. He reaches to grab the other’s arm just above his elbow and squeezes for a second, running his thumb over the inside of his arm before dropping the hand again.

The very second the spell runs over his skin, Alec shuts his eyes tightly. Oh, he gets why this is painful now. It feels like the magic is forcing its way alongside the demon blood, dragging and twisting and- Alec tells himself he won’t cry out. He won’t. For Magnus’s sake he won’t. He has his fists closed tightly, knows his whole body tenses against the feeling and it must be plain on his face. He won’t cry out, he won’t – but he does. Sharply, only for a moment until he catches the sound again and forces it into silence.

For a second his searches for Magnus with unfocused eyes, finds his eyes locked to the wound at Alec’s side, but he looks like he is in pain too. He looks worse actually. So, without deciding to do so, Alec reaches for his arm again, but his hand lands on Magnus’s side instead just below his rips. He doesn’t squeeze or press, just rests his palm there, trying to think only of the warmth of the other’s skin, while there is fire and ice battling for dominance in his body.  
It’s not that bad, he tells himself clenching his teeth.

 

It could have been a minute or ten, but eventually the feeling fades. Alec doesn’t even realize at first, is so focused on the warmth radiating against his hand that it needs Magnus’s hand on top of his to snap him out of it. Alec breathes and when he sits up, he has an arm full of his sister. “Izzy”, he says dumbly.

Over her shoulder, he meets the warlock’s eyes and Magnus looks like he’d been crying. Isabelle untangles herself. “Sorry, sorry”, she mutters and pulls away, but stays kneeling next to him. Alec reaches for Magnus. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean to scare you. Magnus signs, treats his fingers through the nephilim’s when their hands find. He shakes his head slightly and together Isabelle and he help Alec up to his feet.

“The others?” Alec wonders aloud. Isabelle points somewhere in the distance. “Let’s go find them then.” But his sister shakes her head. “No. I’ll go find them, you two stay back” and looking sternly at Alec she adds. “I don’t need you almost dying again. And considering you can’t even stand on your own…”

She squeezes his arm, quickly brushes Magnus’s and heads off. “Be safe”, Alec calls after her, but he knows she’s capable of protecting herself. (Which won’t ever stop him from worrying.) He takes a half-step and staggers against Magnus who catches him securely. Alec can still tell neither of them is completely steady on their feet. When the warlock signs against the side of his head, Alec pulls back slightly and reaches to touch the other’s cheek. “I’m sorry”, Alec says again and kisses him briefly. “It’s alright”, Magnus says. “It’s alright. You’re alright. That’s what matters.” The nephilim looked at the sadness in the other’s eyes and only hoped that was enough.

 

***

 

 **Prompt: _What if in another universe I deserve you?_** _(“Maybe in Another Universe” by Gaby Dunn)_

  
In another time, they exist too. Magnus is magic, of course. They don’t call them downworldlers then, but the tone of their words for his kind are not much different then. They are ugly words with sharp pointy ends. Alec is the son of a warlord, those who hunt magic users. It’s the time of nomads in the far north and clashing swords and all those things. So no one can know that there is a “them”.

One time in the dead of night Alec takes his hand and leads him to the empty festive hall, he makes them sit at the head of one of the tables in the dark of night and Magnus wonders. “You have to see this. This is beautiful”, he keeps repeating and Magnus only barely stops himself from saying: not as beautiful as you. Because Magnus takes one look at Alec and sees the world in his eyes. (They are bright blue, like the sea or the sky, like wild water and wind; bright like the universe itself.) When the moon rises over the hole in the roof, Magnus understands. The hall looks like made out of light. Alec laughs – and Magnus is lost.

“I don’t believe in magic, but this is kind of magic isn’t it?” A part of Magnus’s heart drops. Alec looks at him so sweetly. A bright blush spreads across his cheeks when he steps right up to Magnus. “I-I… - Are you- I mean-“, he stops to laugh shakily again (he’s so free in this life.) “Am I reading this wrong? Because if I am, I’m so sorry- but I was wondering-“ And Magnus takes pity on him there and kisses him.

Alec gasps and meets him halfway for every other move. “My dear”, Magnus says. “I don’t need you to believe in magic. Just in you and me.”

 

***

 

 **Prompt: _"Turn soft and lovely anytime you have a chance"_** _(Jenny Holzer)_

The Chairman purred when the warlock softly patted through is fur, all tenderly which you wouldn’t connect with the warlock necessarily. Alec knew better of course, but he wondered anyway. His gentle demeanour wasn’t limited to just cats.

In truth, the warlock was quiet fond of animals. Even dogs. (Could you believe it?) Not that he’d ever want to own one. (They make too much dirt, he commented once when Alec asked) But Magnus for all his glamor and seeming carelessness would never stand for any cruelty done to animals.(There was an incident a little while ago when a fairy had mistreated a little dog quite cruelly. Alec might be a little sorry for him, because you never wanted to be at the receiving end of a warlock’s wrath.) 

Alec loved Magnus more for it. He stepped up to the scene on the window, where Magnus sat and petted the Chairman still. When the nephilim came close, the warlock looked up and smiled softly. Alec mirrored the felt something warm blossom in his chest and mirrored the smile easily. He reached to run his hand through Magnus hair. The warlock positively purred.  

 

***

 

**Prompt: _I’m proud of you_**

  
“You did great, darling. I’m very proud of you,” the warlock tells Alec sincerely. Magnus can’t remember what exactly it had been about afterwards, only that Alec wore a black shirt and comfy jeans which gave him a presence of comfort and ease that the warlock adored in him. He’d just showered or something, because Magnus also remembers that the tips of his hair had been still wet and that he stood close to the sofa with bare feet.

The words weren’t some that Magnus double-thinks before saying them, but the way Alec looks at him all surprised gratitude – and that emotion shouldn’t be there – makes the warlock stop. He saw the way that the nephilim wordlessly rejected what Magnus had said. It was in the way he held himself a bit differently, his shoulders drawn in just a bit and his hands finding hold somewhere in the fabric on his body. The warlock looks at him for a moment before beckoning Alec over. 

Alec steps into his space easily, stands between Magnus’s legs while the other sits on the couch. The smile on his lips soft, but there is a sadness to it that the warlock wants to wipe away. “Alec”, Magnus starts again, pausing and making sure he had the nephilim’s full attention. Alec tensed at his tone, but didn’t draw away. 

“You’re amazing. Without any of those things you did or will do. I’m proud of you, always will be, you know that right?” He sees the half-shrug Alec gives, something like sadness passing over his face. Then the other leans down with a soft peck to his lips. “Thank you,” he says quietly. But the warlock can tell he only half-believes him.


	12. Prompt 46 - 50

**Prompt: _His dark eyes took me in, and I wondered what they would look like if he fell in love._** _(F. Scott Fitzgerald)_

  
It wasn’t love that he saw in the nephilim’s eyes when he came back after that first exchange on Magnus’s party. There is no way that the warlock can pretend what they had was anything as cheesy as love at first sight when they tell anybody their story much later with matching golden bands on their fingers.

There was nothing in the little Lightwood boy that suggested anything as deep and strong as love, when Alec stepped over the threshold of his flat for the second time ever. The nephilim was fidgety and trying not to be, steadying his stance and step with a stiffness that Magnus read easily. It gave him away. It was true, the warlock saw something in him, a rare spark. But he wasn’t sure then where this would lead them, if it would lead anything at all.

Then Alec went and was so utterly charming. He was a nervous wreck, but direct and honest. The warlock saw attraction and innocent curiosity, he saw such courage it was almost warm to the touch when he kissed the boy. Magnus told himself it was the eyes, the blue so deep and open in them, which dragged him in so quickly. He told himself it was a whim, a passing fancy. _(Oh, how petty the lies were that he told himself.)_

It was a long way still, they did their fair share of stumbling, broke apart the bridges they built to haphazardly in the beginning when they yielded no perspective for a future anymore. But they were never meant to be apart. The treats of their meeting were already woven so tightly the pulled them back together and then became the guidelines for rebuilding their bridges again. (This time on even ground.)

So, it wasn’t love that Magnus saw in Alec’s stance, in his words when he came to him. But oh didn’t he see all the rest of it. And Magnus wondered right then, their lips parting on a quiet gasp, what the sweet nephilim would look like when he was truly, utterly in love. (The answer was more brilliant than even his keenest dreams could have imagined.)

 

**Prompt: _Bad timing_**

  
Alec’s legs are wrapped around the warlock’s hips and the rocking movement which is barely there is speaking of a slow, gentle closeness. There is no rush in either of them, no force, nor harshness. This isn’t the need for release right then, but the urge to crawl under the other’s skin. (As far as Alec can tell, they are succeeding somewhat just not _enough_.)

The sheets are soft against his skin, but Magnus touch is infinitely preferable to the cold silk against his back. Alec finds himself arching into each and every movement, reaching up to trace lean muscles at the other’s sides, pulling and pushing still a little off. But this is a learning process, the nephilim reminds himself, and they start understanding each other’s moves better. As if reading his thoughts, the warlock smiles right when the Alec’s breathe hitches. ( _Or maybe it’s the other way round?)_

When Alec’s phone rings, the little bubble around them threatens to shatter. For a second the nephilim doesn’t even comprehend the sound, needs to find the phone lying on the bedside table with his eyes. Alec wants to reach out and grasp the warlock’s hands, to tell Magnus to just leave it be, but the other sits back on his legs, taking Alec with him, which – _gasp_ – is _new_.

The nephilim scrambles for purchase with his arms around the other’s shoulders. Magnus answers the phone after steading Alec with one hand low on his back. Bastard, Alec mouths at him and the warlock winks.

 

“Is this important?” Magnus asks in a low voice as a way of greeting. The person on the other end of the line momentarily stunned into silence, until asking something. Alec can hear the words easily, he has his cheek resting against the warlock’s neck. He can feel the movement of his jawbone even.

(Is this a bad time?)

“Yes”, the warlock answers shortly. Alec recognizes the voice and wants to groan, but he doesn’t by some fraction of his will being tightly bound to the part of him that is suddenly, brightly embarrassed. He debates biting Magnus, maybe scratching his nails down his back, but that would in all probability result in a reaction that he doesn’t want his _little sister_ to hear.

(I’ll call back later)

“Thank you, dearest Isabelle” Oh, you’re going to pay for this, the nephilim thinks. Magnus drops the phone somewhere next to the bed, his predator glance back on Alec who has his eyes closed tightly and forehead pressed to the other’s shoulder. “You…” Alec starts. “You are a little-“

“Ah careful there darling”, Magnus interrupts and there is this odd airy but threating tone. The warlock starts illustrating the point he is going to make with a sharp thrust upwards. Whatever breath Alec had left in his lungs is gone immediately. His fingers dig into the other’s shoulders sharply. “Don’t forget your current position here.” There is a grin in his voice, Alec knows without looking.

Insufferable bastard. But two can play that game. So Alec rolls his hips down, while reaching up at the same time and catching the warlock in the neck to drag him down for an almost-kiss. For a moment Magnus’s fingertips are resting gently under Alec’s chin. They were moving ever so slightly, tracing the underside of his jawbone in a deliberate movement. Alec could tell that his hands trembled anyway.

“Come on then”, he told the warlock, stealing a quick kiss. “I dimly remember you saying something about making me scream?” Magnus stills and the nephilim has to try hard to keep the grin of his face. Alec pushes his shoulder’s back, the position now giving him the opportunity to frame the other’s face between his only slightly shaking hands. He pulls the other’s head back a bit, feels Magnus’ hands become tighter were they have moulded themselves against his hipbones.

“You have yet to fulfil that promise.” Seeing the warlock’s eyes so black is maddeningly euphoric. Alec wonders for a moment, when he had found that part of him that could say these things out loud so challengingly. Then however, the thought as well as every other is whipped from his mind completely.

 

**Prompt: _Sanity_**

  
“Why do you two get to decide where we go for dinner?” Jace asks Clary and Alec. It’s some discussion about dinner plans and there had been a back and forth between Clary and Jace for about half an hour, before Alec plopped down next to the former on the couch and said: “I’m in favour of Clary’s suggestion.”

Jace had a look of utter betrayal on his face and made some dramatic movements to accompany the same. Magnus rolled his eyes, moving over to sit on the armrest of the deep red sofa. (The colour of the week, as he had proclaimed before when Alec had look from the new piece of furniture to the warlock and back. There was some judgement in his eyes. In his defence though, Alec had accepted the whole thing after 10 seconds and shrugged, moving to get his morning coffee)

After Jace’s question, Alec answers dryly: “Because we’re the sane bits in these relationships.” When Jace looks at Magnus for help, the warlock only has the decency to look mildly offended for a moment. (But the lack of protest might have to do with Alec’s hand around his waist, his fingers stroking at a patch of skin there. Jace makes a gagging noise.)

“Insanity has never looked so hot”, Alec whispers towards Magnus who grins and whispers something back that makes Alec blush. Jace looks at Clary. “What about me?” But she only grins and leans back on the sofa. “Your ego can take it”, she justifies. 

“You spend too much time with Alec”, Jace murmured, play-offended at everybody turning against him. His parabatai chuckles and Jace can’t be mad if he is honest because with Alec being so light, so happy for the first time in so long- for the first time ever, how could he be anything but delighted? Not that he’d admit it. But he figured that as long as the warlock had his hands on Alec’s waist, the latter wouldn’t realize anyway.

 

**Prompt: _I don’t think people understand how stressful it is to explain what happens in your head when you don’t understand it yourself._**

  
Magnus looks up from another book that proved useless for the wishes of this particular client when he heard Alec’s voice rising in volume from the kitchen area.

“- that’s not what I mean, Jace. Look, it’s alright. I just can’t explain right now. I’ll call you back-“, and there is the dull noise of someone speaking on the other end of the mobile, voice sounding sharp and demanding.

“No, I can’t. Why-“, and Alec is probably interrupted again, there is the noise of fingers drumming on a hard surface. Magnus disregards the book and moves towards the noise of the- argument?

“Jace, could you for once just listen!” The nephilim’s voice is rising dangerously and there is a tiny break at the end that Magnus detects there easily even if it isn’t obvious. When the warlock comes into view, Alec is pressing thumb and pointer to the bridge of his nose and signs. “Bye, Jace. We talk later.”

 

He hangs up, drops the phone to the counter and presses the heel of his hands to his eyes for a moment. Magnus comes closer, but waits for Alec to acknowledge his presence before reaching for him. When the nephilim wraps his hands around the warlock’s waist and presses close, he signs. “What was that about?” Magnus asks quietly against the side of his head. Alec shakes his head ever so slightly.

They stay like that for another minute, in fact so much longer that Magnus starts drawing circles on the others lower back. Eventually Alec speaks against the side of his neck so quietly, that the warlock has to strain to hear. “Have you ever wanted to make someone understand something that you could not really understand yourself?”

Magnus pulls back slightly, looking at the other considering the question. “Would you mind elaborating on that?” And somehow the warlock seems to have phrased that right, because Alec stays where he is and keeps talking:

“Like when you don’t want to talk to someone not because they did something, but just because you are not in the mood and feel like you would be unfair with them…? And they don’t want to just stop, but keep insisting and they don’t mean harm, but they do it anyway because you are trying to keep yourself together without lashing out, but they make it so hard?”

Alec looks up at him just when he finishes his speech and a sad smile spreads over his face. “I’m not making any sense, am I?” Magnus slowly frames his head between his palms and gently presses a kiss to his forehead.

And maybe he doesn’t understand completely or maybe he knows the exact feeling, but it doesn’t matter that much. What matters is that Magnus doesn’t ask why or how or any of those stupid questions, but instead gently strokes his thumbs along Alec’s cheekbones.

“What do you need?” _(Alec’s smile turns genuine.)_

 

 

 **Prompt: _“Have no fear, you will find your way. It’s in your bones. It’s in your soul.”_** _(Mark Z. Danielewski)_

  
Alec gets this moods when he is jittery and restless for days on end. It happens out of the blue, usually resulting in the nephilim attempting to clean up this or that part of their flat. Sometimes Alec would just randomly put things in different places, the space not more tidy afterwards but just differently chaotic.

The nephilim pretends it’s nothing, but Magnus can see the way he makes himself breathe in and breathe out in order to steady himself. (And it’s not the pacing, the warlock doesn’t mind that or the “tidying”. It’s just that Alec seems so _unhappy_ with himself in these moods.) At some point, the warlock feels the urge to intervene become too great to ignore.

“Don’t worry so much, darling”, Magnus tells him after wrapping his arms around the nephilim from behind, stilling the shuffling through the book shelves. “You’ll be fine. No matter what happens, you are so strong and so capable.” He kisses the back of his neck at that and feels Alec shudder against him, hands coming up to rest atop Magnus’s.

The warlock interlaces their fingers halfway, a bit awkwardly because they both keep moving their hands and pull and pushing. Eventually the nephilim stills his hands completely and laughs quietly. Magnus smiles against his skin (because, _ah_ , that’s a good sign) before catching his hands.

“It’s in your bones, Alec. In your soul. Everything you could ever need to become the greatest version of yourself”, the warlock believes his words, believes them so much that he fears he can’t quite tell his nephilim yet how great Magnus can already see him becoming in a few years. Alec hums, rests back against the warlock’s frame. Well, maybe this was only a drop in the ocean, but Magnus figured that the way the nephilim’s heartbeat evened out under his palms was a victory in someone’s books.

 


	13. Malec Week

**Day 2: Into the Future-Day**

**Things I haven't told you yet**

In the first few days, they tread more careful around each other then before. It’s like whatever game they were playing before - the back and forth, the lies and hidden truths - has become invalid in the face of the truth: This matters far to much. To either of them.

Alec tries to meet the warlock word after word, voicing thoughts instead of silencing them. Very early on, after this new start, the nephilim comes to sit across the warlock on the floor. It feels like to much so soon, an end of the floating around halfway between some decisions and a bit like landing on the ground after jumping from somewhere very high. (Magnus thinks his feline affinity should probably help him land on his feet, but fears it might not.)

They talk about some of that thoughts that led Alec on that darker path, that threating moments of their relationship, and the nephilim says: “It just hit me right in that moment, how we’d never have something as simple as ‘until death does us part’. I know how stupid it was, but it was a blow that knocked all the breath out of my lungs.”

 _Oh, my Alec. You've been so sad. I didn't know._ Magnus remembers his own words, feels them echo in the space around them and their hands find each other halfway. A gentle smile flickers over Alec’s face.

Then, the nephilim moves to press close. The warlock can feel the tenseness of his body as if he fears that he would be breaking something with admitting the truth. (But he wouldn’t. _Sticks and stones._ ) Magnus wants to smooth the frown on his love’s face, gently kisses him. There is something like an apology in the way that the finally settle down in a tangle of arms and limps, slotting easily into the empty spaces around each other’s bodies.

Magnus kisses Alec’s face, his collarbone, trying to make him understand that his doubts were okay. They could work on that, they could improve together. (But Magnus wanted that sadness in his eyes gone.)

 

The only problem was that even later, when they are cuddled together under the blankets, the nephilim sleeping against his side (and Alec desperately needs to sleep more, Magnus wants the dark circles under his eyes gone) a part of the warlock fells faintly guilty. It’s a nagging train of thought at the back of his head.

 _Oh darling_ , Magnus thinks at the nephilim sleeping over his heart, _there is a great many things I haven’t told you back then. There is a great many things I haven’t told you yet either. But that’s fine, we’ll work on that and we’ll figure out a way for you to know, to learn all these details.  
_  
_But, oh sweet love, there is those things that I won’t tell you ever. Not because I’m keeping secrets, but because I like to think that you love me the way that I love you. And if you do, if you do only by the tiniest fraction, I’m scared of making you despair. Because what I haven’t told you either is that I was lost the moment I allowed you into my heart. Because we kissed and we found each other’s souls are of one kind. And not earth, nor heaven or hell could have stopped us from being together.  
_  
_But the truth is, the beginning of our love story was the beginning of the end of my world. I ended the world before, I outlived others before. But this time it’s you, and it’s infinitely worse. And I might not be able to see the future, the outcome of us, but I remember that I ended the world before. No one survived. Least of all me. So what does this tell us about our end?_

(And Alec shifts against his side on the bed, his arms suddendly a bit tighter and something like a frown passing his face for a second. “We’ll make every moment count. I promise”, the nephilim whispers and oh, he hadn’t been asleep after all, had he? Magnus presses a kiss to the side of his head and wills his mind to stop spinning.)

 

*******

 

**Day 3: AU-Day**

_**Kings and Magicians,** TMI and Arthurian Legend_

_… And so ended the rule of a legendary king_ , the words are pitch-black ink on beautifully cream-coloured, handmade paper, b _ut legends say he will return when the world needs him most._ Magnus’s fingers spread on the first page of the old and well-kept edition of the book that is perched on his knees, dark red binding on a black skinny jeans that glitters with silvery fibres. The warlock’s eyes drifted back over the pages, only resting momentary on the colourful initiums.

The words aren’t catching in his mind anyway, Magnus’s thoughts still with one of his recent parties and the acquaintance of that shadowhunter with the perfect blue eyes. Black and blue. He enjoyed the combination, had for a while now. The warlock might even go as far as to claim it as his favourite these days, though it had not always been like that. But he was old, and if you counted as many years as the warlock did you were allowed the occasional change in taste. (Besides, the sun caught just in the same fascinating way on dark black as it did on ashy blonde.)

 _Alexander Lightwood._ Always with the “A”’s. Magnus figured it might be fate’s way of laughing at him even after all these years. It was this whole repetitive cycle, he was never going to escape it. (Wasn’t losing him once enough?)

Seeing the shadowhunter, meeting _him_ and meeting him _again_ , was like greeting lady fortune at the door. Magnus wished he could greet her like an old friend, but the truth was she smiled at him cruelly and reminded the warlock that, even with all this power, he was unable to save him. (There had to be a way. He just hadn’t thought of it yet. He would, he would eventually.)

 

The warlock had almost failed to save Alec Lightwood the other night. The boy with the ivory skin and the raven hair had lain lifeless on the bed, the blood drained from his lips and the colour gone from his cheeks. Magnus had, oddly and strangely, been reminded of a thousand images of fragile, death-like beauty and in sympathy for Ophelia _(-and didn’t he look like her? All dark and pale and beautiful? But he couldn’t be dead, not again, no no no-)_ the warlock couldn’t breathe for a second.

The magic in him soared and almost burned the warlock’s fingertips. He could tell that it tried to reach the soul tied so closely to himself, the other side of the same coin. Magnus worked mindlessly to save the nephilim, detached himself from his own mind and played the role he’d taken for so many decades now.

 _Magnus Bane. High Warlock of Brooklyn._ Because that’s who he was now. A warlock that liked pretty blue eyes and honest hearts; Alec Lightwood was both and he’d fallen so hard for him already. But there was no system to this _at all._ At least, Magnus told himself that firmly (lied through his teeth) while blue sparks illuminated the space around him and Alec. Thank every god there was, he managed to save the nephilim because he could have hardly been held accountable for his actions otherwise.

Magic came and went in this world. Even Magnus himself wasn’t sure anymore whether the history they all wrote was accurate in all its bits - he _knew_ that some were lies – they always held account of magic. Of course, their words to describe it changed every other century. They’d called them witches, sorcerers and demons. It was downworldlers these days, warlocks.

 

Humankind always held magic in their midst. They didn’t always treat it very kindly, changing the truth behind it into legends and stories that faded from their minds soon after. It didn’t matter, there was little honesty in their stories anyway. Magnus knew that the very book on his lap told more lies that truths, the words twisted and bended into some fathom story that didn’t resemble the king – _his king_ – at all. Well, maybe except for some bits.

The king was indeed brave, indeed endlessly kind and his eyes had been- a knock on the door startles him. Magnus’s eyes, gold and green, flash more golden for a moment and the book is gone from his hands while, in one fluid movement he’s at the door. As if thoughts could draw people, and maybe in this case they could, there is one Alexander Lightwood on his doorstep.

Magnus figures that he is probably losing the tight control he prides himself of, when he kisses Alec at the end of the hour, takes him with him when he leans against the door and cares little that this is the first kiss for this boy in this life. His lips are attached to Alec’s throat and his magic becomes suddenly brittle against his skin everywhere, he’s shocked at himself, how easy he slips. _It’s not him, at least not fully. He doesn’t remember, so it’s not him-_

  
But when they part and the boy looks at him so prettily, grabs him for another kiss over the threshold before leaving with a spring in his step, Magnus - no, that’s not true- ** _Merlin_** thinks: _Oh, you prat. Why is it that you get me every time, **Arthur?**_

__

_(_ And a whole while later, Alec steps into his space in that dammed realm Edom, a gleaming sword in his hand at which Magnus thinks Excalibur, greeting the metal, and his eyes widen comically. All the breath rushes out of his lungs and for a second the warlock fears something bad has happend, but a smile draws the nephilim’s lips apart.

“Merlin”, he breathes and Merlin swears that for a moment he can feel the way the universe expands around them and a supernova in a neighbouring galaxy and the core of the earth glowing. But all of that matters little with his whole world suddendly becoming perfectly and wholly _right_.)

 

*******

 

**Day 4: Crossover-Day**

**_Fountain and Broken Shards,_ ** _TMI and McEwan’s Atonement_

  
The birds are chirping softly outside, when Alec moves along the long windows of the salon, steps into the patches of light that the sun illuminates on the floor. The day is bright and warm, the sun reaching even through his long, dark trousers and it seemed that the mild spring has finally merged into summer.  
Alec comes to sit on one on the ottoman sitting right under a half-length window and gets rid of his shoes, the heat becoming almost too much. They hit the ground with a soft tap, being dropped carelessly. Almost subconsciously, Alec turns halfway. Outside, just on the topmost steps sits one Magnus Bane, the line of his back long and lean. _(Alec can tell. Even under the loose clothing. Because Alec looks. Not that he should.)_

The flowers on a close table catch Alec’s eyes when his attention wanders back into the room. They need water, he decides quickly, stupidly and thinking of the fountain outside, picks them up. When he passes a mirror on his way out – to the stairs that lead to the garden, those where Magnus sits – Alec looks at himself. The heat has given his skin a sweaty gleam, his dark hair a mess and he reaches up to fix it just as he realizes what he is doing. Stop it, Alec tells himself, just stop.

Alec has the vase under one arm when he passes Magnus on the stairs, he acknowledges him with the nod of a head, brushes past him quickly. “Who are the flowers for?” asks the other, standing up and following quickly down the stairs. He is full of joy, it is radiating of him and Alec loves it, loves hi-. No, he hates this stupid man. He _hates_ him.

Alec doesn’t acknowledge him first, shrugs then without stopping. The grass is soft under his feet, feels warm and fresh. When Magnus keeps walking with him even as they leave the stony ground of the terrace, Alec finds himself saying: “Beautiful day.” “Too hot for me”, Magnus shoots back, adding “Are you enjoying your book then?”

The book Magnus had wanted him to read, the one he had finished already. Not that Alec could admit that. It was a really good read. Clever and funny. “No, not really.” Magnus seems to detect the lie if the look on his face is any indication. “It gets better.”

Even as Alec picks up his stride, Magnus keeps following him. “So you want to become a doctor now I hear?” Alec asks, find his voice sharper than intended. Please just go away, he thinks, don’t you see what you’re doing? Don’t you understand just why I’ve been keeping away from my own home? Because you are here. Right here. “Yes”, Magnus answers shortly.

“Six years of student life”, Alec observes coldly. Magnus stops behind him suddenly. “I’ll pay your father back.” The words are cutting the air between them and Alec hadn’t meant to comment on that, to dare accuse Magnus of anything but paying back every cent of the money his father loaned him. _(He wouldn’t anymore if he knew how I feel about you. He would case you off the grounds himself.)_

“That’s not what I meant”, Alec says sincerely, can see that Magnus knows. That he does believe Alec. He signs quietly, turns and only stops when he comes to sit on the edge of the fountain. Magnus is following him again. The fountain is some Greek figure holding up a plate from which the water usually flows down into the collecting pond, but right now it’s turned off. The only water is the rest in the basin. But it doesn’t matter much as the water level is still fairly high.

 

“Let me help”, Magnus starts grabbing for the handle on the side of the vase, when Alec leans down to dip his fingers into the water for a second. Alec shrugs him off. “I’m alright thanks”, he says while sliding the flowers out of the vase and placing them on the stony rim.

“Don’t be ridicoulus, take the flowers”, Magnus voice is stern. “I’m alright-“, and before the words even leave his mouth the grabble between them has broken the porcelain vase into pieces, spilling on the ground, into the fountain. Alec watches it tumble down, levitate as if weightless under water. A surprised noise leaves Alec, the sound of porcelain on the water surface catching in his mind somewhere and grating.

Magnus looks like a child with that pout on his face, defiant as if he was not to be faulted for the whole thing. “You idiot”, Alec breathes. Magnus breaks into a breathy laugh and moves away, barely controlling his laughter. (He has to tell him very firmly that the warmth fluttering somewhere low in his stomach means nothing at all.) Alec leans over the rim again. “Father will kill me. You realize that is probably the most valuable thing we own?”

Something in his look catches at the mention of Alec’s father, but he wouldn’t be himself if his next words weren’t: “Not anymore, it isn’t”, he says, still laughing quietly and standing only a few feet from the pond. Alec is burning with anger suddenly. Of course not because of the stupid vase. But because of Magnus, no because how he wants him so badly and he can’t have him and Magnus just won’t leave his orbit and Alec needs to do _something_ -

 

“Careful!” Magnus yells with a hand outstretched, but Alec has already stepped into the shards on the ground. He looks down, back up at Magnus. It’s just a few tiny cuts, Alec thinks still angry, feeling the sting only belatedly.

Before he can think any further, Alec starts to strip. He pulls the shirt off – it catches on his arms, damn – angrily and throws it to the ground. Magnus huffs. The trouser pants are gone immediately after, leaving him in just his underwear. He doesn’t even met Magnus’s eyes, doesn’t think he could, before he turns and slides into the water of the fountain, completely sink under the water’s surface.

It takes a moment for him to find his orientation under water, but he finds the bigger piece of vase that dropped into the water easily enough, just as his air seems to run out and grabs for it. He emerges with a splash and steps onto the fountain’s edge in one fluid movement. As he rises his eyes, he meets Magnus’s, staring at him. They stand and breathe, Alec dripping wet and Magnus dry and- is that awe in his look?

Alec breathes in deeply, moved to stand in the grass and grabbed his clothes to slip them onto his wet skin where they stick, uncomfortably. Magnus has averted his eyes suddenly, but his breathing isn’t all that steady anymore and could it be- no, Alec scolds himself firmly. A moment later, Alec becomes aware of the vase handle in his hand and grabs all the pieces from the ground that he can find with a quick sweep of his eyes.

When he passes Magnus, the other starts: “I’m-“ but he breaks of when Alec simply snatches the broken piece of porcelain from his hand and strides past him. Alec doesn’t stop, not once till he is safely in the house, doesn’t dare look back. He forces himself to walk calmly, swift but calmly because his heart is hammering in his chest and he wishes, just wishes _he could have him_.

 

*** 

 

**Day 5: Back-to-the-Future-Day**

_**New York, 1923** _

When Alec’s sister dragged him along to one of the infamous parties in the grand new _palace_ of one Magnus Bane in _Long Island_ , (Who had that kind of money?) he thought he mind just crawl somewhere under a rug. There were lights everywhere, glittering dresses and loud music that was making his ears ring. Isabelle seemed delighted and only five minutes after they’d moved across the quite extensive lawn and had stepped into the entrance hall that was centred around a fountain – _could you believe it?_ – Isabelle leaned in and whispered: “Have fun, dearest brother, I’ll be off dancing a bit.”

Alec’s protests were ignored with a smile and sharp laughter following a second later, when some fine dressed man bowed for the next dance with Isabelle. He wasn’t the only one and it was hardly surpising, Isabelle looked beautiful in a dark dress, a thousand silver stones framing the neckline and forming elaborate patterns reaching almost down to the last of her rips. When she spun the dress just barely covered whatever she wore underneath and Alec signed. But how could he have said no to the party, when he little sisters eyes where gleaming so brightly at the prospect of enjoying a evening like this? _(And his parents really seemed to think that Alec could hold Isabelle back, allowing her to go if he went with her. They clearly didn’t know much about Bane’s parties.)_

Alec morphed into the background and stood somewhere on the far end of the dance floor sipping idly on some watered-down champagne – because why not?  While his eyes wandered over the grand stairs leading up to gallery, listing to the chatter of some people nearby. “Did you hear that Bane was a German spy during the war?” - “Nosense, he was assassin for the emperor.” - “I heard he killed someone.” Well, thought Alec, Bane sounds like a _fun_ guy.

“Oh, my”, a figure next to him started and suddendly leaned into his space. “Do you really believe that he killed someone?” Alec looked at him and thought for a second, very rudly, that this person was the all the things he hated about this place personified. The man looked classy enough in a suit, but his hair had at least two colours that seemed way to artificial and the bowtie was full of gold glitter- Alec realized a moment too late that his thoughts must have shown on his face. “Sorry, what?” The other man laughed, with his head tipped back and Alec felt a rush of something in his blood.

When their eyes met again, there was a spark in the other’s and something completely otherworldly. “And who, if I dare ask, are you?” Alec flushed, put his glass down somewhere. The attention of this man was maddening.But Alec was quiet sure that he must be drunk, should probably go and find Isabelle. “Someone who’s clearly out of place here.” But Magnus caught him by the wrist and when Alec turned back to him smiled much gentler. The smile was special, the kind that seemed to express understanding and respect; and Alec felt his knees go weak. “Please don’t go. Those eyes are the brightest thing in the room”, he said sincerely “and I quite like bright things.”

“You and Magnus Bane, both”, Alec murmured and let himself be dragged back. Someone stepped up on the dancefloor, that was basically the whole living room floor, announcing someone else, anyone and a impressive voice filled the air, while glitter started raining down from somewhere. Alec flinched at the loud noise the explosion above caused when it started raining confetti. And it drove him straight into the stranger’s embrace. He gasped at the other’s arms coming up around him, scrambling to get away and apologizing and immediately almost slipping on his own drink which was now spilled onto the floor.

The man’s hands tightened around him. He was hushed gently, the other’s touch considerate, careful and soft like nothing else in the room was. Alec thought he could get lost in these touches. “How about some fresh air?”, the other’s voice dragged him back from the thoughts that had clouded up his mind.

But he didn’t wait for an anwer, simply dragged Alec outside the big long windows. When he stepped into the cold night air, Alec breathed in deeply. It was like coming up from under water, the music still audible but not quite so deafening. Even the lights seemed dimmer from here. “Better?”, the other asked after a second, gently reaching for his arm. Alec nodded. “Thank you”, and after a second he realized that they still hadn’t introduced themselves to each other. “I’m Alec Lightwood.” He said shaking the strangers hand and received a smile for that. “ _Alexander_ , I’m assuming? What a very elegant name.”

The way the other said his name, made Alec shudder. The stranger’s smile stretched when he reached to brush something of Alec’s shoulder. “It’s good to meet you, Mr Lightwood. I’m Magnus Bane.” It was a bit like being punched, all the air left his lungs in a rush and he scrambled to apologize, again, but Magnus brushed him off, laughing kindly.

“It’s quite alright. To be honest, I think you’re the most refreshing person I met all night”, Magnus told him still smilingly and Alec felt himself blushing. “Unfortunately, I have some more business to attend to… but I’d love for you to call me?” He handed him a folded sheet of paper, a number scrawled in elegant letters and Alec took it without thinking. Magnus beamed at that, then vanished back into the house and as Alec stared after him, he was swallowed up by the mass of people. But Alec saw only him.

(Isabelle found him a few minutes later, whooping when she saw the piece of paper still between his fingers: _Oooh, look at my brother the heartbreaker_.)

 

***

 

**Day 6: Genderswap-Day**

**Fallen Angels**

Even if Magnus had hated his parents as long as he could think, he had to grudgingly admit that being the only son of a rich family did come with perks. If he only told himself often enough that he wasn’t like his parents, Magnus might just forget how they had come to possess so much money. _(He could hear the faint sound of shackles almost every hour of the day.)_

Magnus didn’t really fit into his parents’ view of the world. In fact, the only reason that his parents, who barely tolerated their liberal minded son, hadn’t thrown him out was that Magnus himself had been somewhat of a child prodigy, his little inventions becoming bigger ones and eventually adding to the family fortune quite considerably. However, he wondered how much longer he could play that card shortly after he turned twenty-one and realizing his last really successful piece of engineering was several years in the past.  

In the end, Magnus wasn’t sure if he was any better than his parents really. He took their money, deliberately helped strengthen their power and held his tongue on their… trade. Not that he admitted the whole thing to himself. He was a coward like that. Brightly dressed and loud-mouthed, but only ever trying to win his parents approval. They were the iron chains holding him on the ground- but that thought lead down a dangerous path, so he’d always abandoned it quickly.

In an attempt to divert his thoughts, Magnus had somehow set his mind on traveling around the states. Even more surprisingly, he’d convinced his parents that the trip would give him just the right diversion to create something new, something better. Something that would sell in the whole country which would in turn make his parents proud. Possibly. It would make them richer though and more powerful and- that was the whole conundrum, wasn’t it?

So in truth, Magnus had no intention of inventing, not much interest in the technologic acquisitions he was faced with on his trip. The whole journey started out as a way to waste away time, Magnus had lingered around this and that city, admired the beauty of it’s architecture and these kind of things. (His attempt at drawing at failed spectacularly but he burned any prove immediately.) 

Soon however, Magnus had found a darker whim, one that captured his attention more and more. He had rather taken a liking for circuses, vaudeville, and – these were most interesting to him - freak shows. (Again, if he didn’t think about it, it was only half-bad.) This wasn’t just some ill-fantasy of his. Rather, Magnus felt an odd companionship to all those beings that the world considered not quite _right.  
_

  
His own flaw were his eyes, their colour yellow and green, different in each eye, varying even in the segments of a single iris. In addition, his pupils where strangely shaped, pointy towards hell and heaven. A bit like a cat’s eyes might be. (“A mutation”, he remembered a doctor saying to his six-year old self. “There isn’t much to be done about it, but it’s not dangerous to him.” Magnus remembered the frown on his mother’s face, the disapproval on his fathers and knew from that moment on that he was a disappointment already.)

 

So, he ends up in some little hamlet in the southern areas without really consciously deciding to go there. Well, maybe Magnus plans his journey there. He heard of a formidable freak show performing there the following night. 

When he arrives, the tent is fairly full even if he’s at least half an hour early. By the time they start the show with some loud music and a music piece by what appears to be the owner of this very special performance establishment, Magnus is squished between a curious couple (He’s clearly uncomfortable, she’s excited) and a boy (“Aren’t you too young to be here on your own?” Magnus asked him a while ago, but the boy just shrugged and kept chewing on some sweet candy. Magnus could tell it was sweet because the boy’s face and hands became unbelievable sticky quite quickly). The air is so stuffy, it’s a bit hard to breathe. 

But his attention is all captured by the stage anyway. There is a bearded woman, a very musical tiny person, a lot of others. So many in fact that Magnus simply lets himself swap away in the cheers around him, fascinated but not caught up in the show as he had hoped to be. The night was entertaining surely, but he’d not found anything as extraordinary as he had hoped.

That changed quickly when a young girl appeared behind the rising red curtain, her very own _wings_ curled around her kneeling form. _An angel’s wings_. Magnus gasped. (And so did the room around him.) They all fell silent suddenly. This was the kind of creature he was looking for, Magnus knows, even if he hadn’t known he was looking for anything at all before. 

When the startling white, feathered wings parted, Magnus still only saw bits of her face as long black hair fell right into her face. It did nothing to hide the gleaming blue of her eyes. Even if Magnus thought quickly that of the perfect angel probably ought to be blonde, a second thought over-layered the first much stronger: _She’s perfect. An angel._

A sound of awe dragged through the room when she lifted her wings, expanded them completely, while slowly coming to a stand. Magnus was too transfixed by the wings first, too caught up in the mood of the room. But when her chin stayed slightly lowered, her eyes distant, he could suddenly read it in every muscle of her body: _she was in pain_. But why would such a lovely creature be in pain? While Magnus felt his excitement wash away and morph into something like sadness over this sweet creature’s agony, he suddenly found himself staring back right at her.

Their eyes met across the room and even if there were a million people around him and all of them staring at her Magnus knew that she was only looking at him. “The fallen angel”, someone announced through a microphone. “Alexandra. Isn’t she a beauty?” _Yes_ , Magnus thought, y _es, she is indeed. But she is also incredibly sad.  
_

  
He felt anger in himself about the apparent ignorance of everybody else. It clouded his sight, made him shake slightly, effulged his every thought – so much that the next time he looked up at the stage, another act had taken her place. He was left staring into space as the world just kept turning, while his life was turned upside down. 

***

Alex grit her teeth when her cruel puppeteer unhinged the largest wooden planks from the construction on her back. She was sitting on a flimsy chair, grabbing the metal curves of its back tightly. He draped a silken robe over her back, but the fine fabric was as painful on her marred skin as every other would have been. Her wings were covered up like a shameful thing. Maybe they were. 

The other bits on her back weren’t removed. Not after each show. If she was lucky, she’d get rid of them every other weekend, but the pain of the nails being dug out of her skin, the wooden splitters haphazardly removed for a cold bath nearly wasn’t worth it. (As was the wracking pain of them being … reapplied. _Hammered into her bones._ )

“You did well tonight”, said the mistress suddenly behind her and she flinched, causing the silk to scrap along some nails and holding still suddenly. “What is it?” the mistress asked, her voice almost mocking. “You said you are an angel, aren’t you happy to be one?” And suddenly she had a grip on her hair, pulling tight, in the warning of more pain. “Yes”, Alex gasped out, gritting her teeth again and looking at her own reflection in the show mirror in front of her. “Good”, the mistress said, pressing dry lips to the side of her head. “Don’t forget your sleeping draught.” 

She vanished, leaving Alex with a blue bottle of crude medicine that would give her relief from the pain, but make her body weak as well. She stared at herself, thinking: _You’re pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourself._ Tears began running over her face. Oh, how she wished there was not even the slightest bit angel in her. There was half of one, making her nephilim-kind or something alike. She could not know, her parents had all died far too long ago. She had a sister still, an adopted brother somewhere, but pleaded only that they were far away from this wretched place. 

The wings on her back were indeed quite real, the pain in them more bearable when they were tugged to her body closely. But they didn’t usually become visible. (They had cruelly tricked her into making them appear, fixing their forms onto her back with nails and wood. She’d screamed until her voice gave out, but it was no use.) Alex wished they weren’t, she wished- a sudden rustle of tent fabric made her look up and see a second face behind hers in the mirror. Startled, Alex whipped around and staggered when she moved to get up, pain shooting through her back, were the fabric caught again. “You can’t be here”, she told the stranger, not-stranger.

His hair was black like her own, his clothes looked elegant and expensive. She might have taken him for a spoilt young man that was used to get everything he wanted. (And she’d encountered those men a lot, was only half-sure the mistress would protect her much longer. She wondered how much money they’d offer her and prayed it would never be enough.) 

But this was the man who had looked at her with such sadness that she felt her own mirrored, couldn’t help but stare at this wave of compassion hitting her from somewhere in the crowd. He stood right in front of her, but he’d possibly end up dead ( _or worse_ , her mind supplied helpfully) if he didn’t vanish immediately. “You need to leave.” But the other shook his head softly. 

“How could I when I have found the most beautiful thing on earth?” his voice was soft and comforting and kind. She wanted to wrap herself in it, fall asleep and never ever wake up again. There was something earnest in him, something lovely and full of warmth.

A sharp-bitter laugh escaped her throat. It sounded dangerously like a sob. The man offered a hand to her. Alex could have wept. “My name is Magnus and I couldn’t help but realize that you looked as if you were in pain”, he told her almost conversational. A madness must have taken her, because she looked at cat-like eyes and thought “Isn’t there some saying about cats and demons?” when she reached for his hand and begged someone who could very well be the devil: “Help me.” 

_(But no devil could smile so kindly and sweetly, or could he?)_

 

***

 

**Day 7: Scene-You'd-Like-In-The-TV-Show-Day**

  
“Can I?” Magnus asks, an extended arm reaching for Alec who is standing entirely still in the middle of the entrance area of Magnus’s apartment. Where a moment ago he had been surrounded by his siblings, he stood on his own now and looked smaller than before. The warlock considered this very strange young man in his living space with a heart that was half-hope, half-despair and suddenly doubted his own decision trade Alec against his parabatai. 

The feeling was not routed in self-doubt as Magnus wanted the nephilim here, enjoyed having Alec to himself. No, the warlock just feared that he had put Alec in a position right in this second which the nephilim might not apprechiate. Magnus thought that the other might jump and run at any sudden movement, if the tenseness in the line of his shoulders was any indication. _(I’d tell you that I’d never hurt you, but it isn’t me that you fear, is it? It’s the rest of the world.)_

It was the oddest thing, really, the way Alec seemed to tether between crowding him against a door and installing something like a safety distance between the two of them. (Because he’d done the former before, too. It was a situation with mixed signals.) Magnus was torn between screaming and laughing but did neither in the end because it hardly mattered how the nephilim behaved, his very treacherous heart had decided long ago that it was him and only him. 

Alec blinked at his outstretched hand and Magnus took a leap of faith then because he stepped forward to embrace the nephilim in a slow and deliberate gesture (giving Alec all the time in the world to move away). But the nephilim melted and when Magnus made their foreheads touch, the other’s eyes slid close with a sign. There was a little frown on his face, one that the warlock knew was not about him at all this time. “They’re going to be just fine”, he told Alec and the corner of the nephilim’s lips twitched upwards for just a moment. Magnus began to see the inner workings of the mystery that was Alexander Lightwood. 

 

***

They were both soaking wet and kneeling on the car’s roof, barely kept afloat by Magnus’s magic that was wavering in his hands and starting to dry out. The warlock felt the source of his power shying away from his reach as if in pain with overuse, he was tired and drained, but the only thing he felt for a second was relief when Alec looked at him with clear blue eyes. Not dead, not drowned. The emotion turned sour, then soft again and when the nephilim offered his hands Magnus was stunned. 

“Alexander”, he whispered, feeling warmer than before by the sheer words of the nephilim. The other shuddered, entwined their hands by himself, but it was Magnus who pulled him in by the contact, pressing both of his hands against a place right over his own heart. With the knuckles of his free hand he touched Alec’s cheek, saw nothing like determination in his eyes then. (The warlock knew he was gone for good. This was it. A single word of Alexander Lightwood could bring all the joy or all the agony in the world.)

The blue glow between them was reflected in the nephilim’s eyes which lowered to their entwined hands, looking in wonder and curiosity. There wasn’t a bit of fear in them and Magnus wondered idly if their emotions had become mirrors and their attraction to each other something far more profound. But he couldn’t quite decipher all of the Lightwood boy yet. 

While Magnus’s own fog of tiredness lifted, he felt Alec sag forward slightly and steadied him with an arm wrapped around his side, their legs shifting awkwardly around for another moment before settling in something that wasn’t quite comfort. “I have you”, Magnus said almost to himself. “Just rest, everything is going to be just fine.” 

Alec surprised him again, when his voice was completely steady where his body seemed to fight against sleep: “I know.”

 

***

The first time Magnus took Alec to bed was something like a spurt of the moment, but accompanied by the nephilim’s repeated confirmation: “Yes. I want this. I promise I do. Yes, _yes_.” His shaking hands betrayed him, his stuttering breath. So, the warlock was determined to make this slow, to give Alec every out he could possibly need. (But it took quite some effort to uphold his new-found morals. Magnus moaned against Alec’s shoulder when they had finally stumbled down onto the sheets, trying very hard to clear his head and very nearly beyond any reason.) 

When Magnus woke later, in the middle of the night, the other side of the bed was empty. His fuzzy mind took a moment to catch on, but there was some light illuminating a corner of the floor where the bathroom door stood ajar. The warlock found Alec leaning over the sink in the bathroom and grabbing the porcelain, very nearly hyperventilating. 

“Shh”, he found himself hushing the other, turning him with gentle hands on his arms. Alec didn’t resist him at all, arching into the contact subconsciously. But his breathing remained harsh and irregular for another minute and every time he tried to take a breath to explain the words caught in his throat instead. “It’s okay. Shh. Just breathe.” 

It broke the warlock’s heart she that look on his face, but he knew when Alec grabbed for him, wanting him close still what this wasn’t. He’d figured out Alec’s loyalities a while ago, understood how he only wanted to make his family proud and how he was so very scared of everything that their connection meant. 

Something of the panic in the other’s eyes washed away, but it was still there. Magnus found himself promising something, he’d sworn himself he’d not promise, because it wasn’t fair to himself. It wasn’t fair to Alec either, even if the nephilim might not realize that right now, but with the sweet boy fraying so badly and trying so hard, Magnus felt he’d give him the world: “No one needs to know. Shh, it’s alright. We don’t need to tell anyone.” 

 

***

After everything, the missing pieces between them seem to start falling into place, smoothing over the jarring edges that had made them break apart. Magnus was reminded of the breaking oak (because they’d always been strong, just the stubborn kind maybe) and the bending reed (he hoped that they could be that, that they’d learn and grow together). 

Alec had found something, not in Magnus but in himself, that made him settle more easily into his body. Into Magnus’s apartment, moulding himself into the warlock’s side on the couch. (A thing that gave him confidence in his braveness, for the latter had been there all along.)

A gentle smile draw the nephilim’s lips apart when he leans up to kiss Magnus; he does it again and again, laughter bubbling up from somewhere deep in his throat and it’s like music in the warlock’s ears. (It’s such a sappy though, Magnus is sure he’d whack himself if his hands weren’t around Alec’s waist.) He traces the bone just below the nephilim’s eye and wonders aloud without meaning to: “You look happy. It suits you.”

Alec’s smile doesn’t waver, if anything it expands when he tells him very simply “I am” and seals it with another kiss like one might a promise. “Are you?” he asks quietly against Magnus’s lips and there those insecurities shine below the brave heart that has finally taken flight. But that’s Alec and the warlock wouldn’t want it any other way. (If anything it makes him prouder of Alec.) He answers just as simply, finally out in the open and maybe with a bit of the fearlessness of the nephilim in his arms: “Yes.”

 


	14. Prompt 51 - 55

**Prompt: _Forever’s Price (Part 2)_**

“Magnus”, starts Catarina in the doorway. “Let him sleep.” Her voice is lowered, but it still startles the warlock for a second. He his sitting beside Alec on the bed, the nephilim curled up on his side, facing Magnus, leaning subconsciously into the touch of the warlock’s hands softly running his fingers through his hair. The warlock feels like the storm is rising on the horizon and there is nothing he can do but wait for it to unfold. He just wished he could shelter Alec somehow. 

“Cat-“ “Let him sleep. He needs the rest. You can’t do anything right now.”   
Magnus knows she is right, knows she is being reasonable, but it takes another few tries of coaxing on her part to make him actually leave the bedroom and follow her into the living room. He isn’t aware of anything for a little while until he finds himself seated on the sofa, Cat leaning against him lightly. “He’s going to be alright,” she says but Magnus can’t tell whether she actually believes it or is merely trying to reassure him. Either way: _it isn’t working._

“What am I supposed to do?” He wonder’s aloud. But there is no answer for that is there? Because what could he do? And it was then that it hit him: they were dead. There was a dark melancholy just at the edge of his mind and he pushed hard for it to go away because he couldn’t fall prey to it right now. (Because if this was what it felt like to him, how would Alec feel?) Cat stayed silent at his side, her posture looked in tenseness. Magnus thought maybe she feared for him falling apart, too. 

“It’s not the immortality part that I’m concerned about,” he says and finds the words are true. Some years ago, in another life it seems now, they would have had at least some reason to celebrate such a thing. Not that Magnus didn’t enjoy the idea of having Alec, having him always. But this had come with a price that might just be too high to keep Alec’s sanity intact. Magnus found he cared little for his own feelings in regard to the nephilim, but felt only the deep despair of his love echoed in himself. Even if the other didn’t quite feel it yet, being beyond exhaustion, blissfully numb in sleep.

“How do I explain him what happened?” He almost whispers. “He’s been there you know,” Cat is still taking softly he realizes belated. As if he is an animal that would bolt at any wrong move. Magnus thinks, she is not wrong. A gentle touch to his shoulder makes him look at her. “He knows.” That’s true, but not helpful. There is a soft sound from the bedroom and Magnus barely manages an apologetic look to Cat before he is out of the room. 

*

Alec blinks, his eyes unseeing for a few moments. The warlock settles slowly into the side of his body. “Magnus?” he breathes, it’s barely a sound at all, his voice pitifully small. Magnus hums, tries not to say anything more and let the nephilim try out awareness. 

Alec turns into him, head resting against his shoulder and automatically he closes his arms around him. “Sleepy,” he breathes and Magnus can feel cruel relief in his veins. Not just yet awake then. 

“Go back to sleep,” he urges quietly, again resisting any more words than Alec wouldn’t comprehend right now anyway. The nephilim has already fallen back asleep. Magnus wishes that the tiredness may last for hours and hours, for days maybe, wishes that his mind blocks everything out. But he know that cannot be. 

 

***

 

**Prompt: _Birthday_**

After all the guests have left, Alec came up to the warlock and hugged him tightly. Magnus moved into the embrace with practiced ease. The flat was a mess of rogue pillows in all places, mugs and plastic cups and… confetti. (“Not my idea,” Magnus had said with his hands raised defensively when Jace had started throwing it around.)

There was a staple of books near the sofa that stayed upright bravely in spite of gravity – the two at the top had been a gift from Clary, one about drawing because she had seen Alec doodling on some random sheets and the other about motorcycles (“I case you don’t like the other one,” she’d shrugged. But Alec had beamed at her and the whole thing easily counted as double success.)   

The nephilim nuzzled close in something that the warlock knew to be content and affection. “Maybe we should go away next year. Just the two of us”, Alec murmured against the side of Magnus’s head, frowning the slightest bit when he pulled back as if it had been a sudden thought that had left his lips unbidden. The way Alec leaned against the warlock suggested that he was quite worn out. 

“Did you like your party so little?” Magnus asked, half-chuckling. Alec just wasn’t the type for crowds. It wasn’t as if there had been a lot of guests by any standards really. Though, the warlock agreed that next to Isabelle, Simon and Clary, Jace’s ego alone probably counted for half a dozen more people. Alec’s head drops to Magnus’s collarbone in a deliberate gesture, but it hides whatever expression passes over his face from the warlock. 

It takes a while until he answers, Magnus thinks maybe he won’t answer at all. Their silence is a comforting one, so the warlock doesn’t mind it. Then: “No,” Alec starts his voice gentle and soft. “I just don’t like the look on your face every time you think I look away.” The nephilim raises his head and Magnus is aware that the surprise must show on his face clearly. Something in the other’s eyes grows soft and gentle. 

“I know we talked about this, I’m not going to say I’ve accepted the fact that we are a tragedy in the making, but if we do it day by day I can be alright with it,” and his eyes spoke more words, said I love you in a stronger language than words. Magnus hadn’t realized, he’d concealed his looks so poorly. Or maybe he had yet again forgot just how close his nephilim paid attention. “Under the condition that both of us can enjoy what we have right now.” 

The warlock signed quietly, leaned in for a kiss. He wanted to gentle the threat that the looming future might bring. “Did you think of a destination for next year already? I’m positive we could make any trip unforgettable.” And Magnus thought of a million spectacular things that they could do which might make the nephilim forget the ticking of the clocks.

 

***

 

**Prompt: _“The world was a terrible place, cruel, pitiless, dark as a bad dream. Not a good place to live.”_ ** _(Cornelia Funke, The Inkheart Trilogy)  
_

An iron hand had the warlock’s very heart tightly enclosed in its grip. With every passing minute scouring the dimly light streets – the sun showing its unreliable face with the day finally passing – the hold of the invisible power became tighter and crueller. Magnus felt like he had been holding his breath for the past 30 minutes. Since Isabelle’s call. She’d hastily explained about some demons they had hunted, the terrible price payed for their elimination, about Alec leaving quickly after. (Which was not like him, not at all, he never left without checking that absolutely everybody was perfectly whole.) 

Magnus knew Alec. He knew where his husband would go, but so far all his guesses had been off. ( _Slightly_ , he told himself, but it didn’t matter.) Which was why something like surprise dropped somewhere in the back of his mind when he rounded another corner, stepped into an alley that was literally right outside the apartment building where Magnus and Alec lived. The feeling of relief at the sight of the familiar figure was so overwhelming that for a moment the warlock did little else but breathe at the sight of dark hair and blue eyes sitting on the lowest platform of the fire-escape.

The nephilim didn’t even look up when Magnus moved into the opening space of the side-street. A part of the warlock’s brain went auto-pilot and he slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, hitting redial on his mobile and told Isabelle after the second ring had barely passed: “I found him. Everything’s fine”, which he couldn’t know, which was in all probability and considering the way Alec’s entire body seemed wired, wound up to the edge of breaking apart, a lie. Magnus’s eyes never left him. “I’ll have him call you later.”

Isabelle protested, of course she protested, but Magnus hasn’t moved his eyes from the nephilim and isn’t sure he has time for this game with her now. “Isabelle”, he says sharper than intended and she falls silent. Of course Isabelle worries, she’s his sister and they’ve lost a brother already. They needed each other. Magnus thinks, I need him too. “I promise I’ll take care of him.” And he doesn’t know how that is enough, but it apparently is, because less than 10 seconds later they have hung up. (And that whole exchange was probably, maybe 30 seconds which was usually enough for Alec to get out of his gear, kiss him hello and make coffee or something.) Magnus wills himself to keep breathing. 

 

While being the lowest horizontal metal structure, the grid was still too high for Magnus to reach even with outstretched arms. (Not that he tried.) The warlock might have been able to touch below the nephilim’s knee while standing directly in front of him, but somehow he feared he’d startle Alec. Magnus came closer carefully, stopped a good few feet away from the nephilim whose eyes were downcast, hands daggling over a metal bar idly spinning a seraph blade. (And that was entirely Jace’s look, but never his Alec’s.)

“Alec”, he starts softly and the other’s eyes flicker up to his, something in his expression wavers for a tiny moment and then he stars at the far wall, face cold and closed off. The warlock tries to decipher this behaviour, wishes Isabelle had told him more – but he’d not let her, Magnus reminds himself, he’d been out of the door immediately.

“How did you find me this quickly?” And oh, thinks Magnus, his perception of time must be so very off. Because 30 minutes wasn’t quick. It was, Magnus admitted angry at himself for taking so many wrong turns, incredibly slow. “Lucky guess”, he tells him, not bothering to correct the assumption. Alec hums in response, inclines his head to one side and his hands become still. There is some faint red light catching in his hair and Magnus feels startled by how beautiful he is again. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Magnus sees how far away the nephilim is slipping, desperate to grasp for him, to pull him close, but aware how wrong that move could be. He told himself he’d seen this before in shadow hunters, this closed-off-ness. But this wasn’t any shadowhunter, there was a golden band on his finger to prove it.  “Not particularly”, Alec, not-really-Alec shrugged.

The nephilim shudders, rubs a hand over his opposite upper arm in a parody of the movement you’d attempt to create warmth. But he didn’t seem to consider getting rid of the blade in the other. “Are you cold?” Magnus hear himself ask dumbly, maybe not so dumbly, trying to find an opening to slip under, to drag him back from whatever dark place Alec had manoeuvred himself into. The nephilim laughed, sharp and short, a breathy laugh. “I’m in shock, right?” 

Magnus stepped closer, taking of his jacket. “Yes” he said “Here” when offering the coat, which was odd considering Alec was still sitting on the escape ladder. “A fine shadowhunter I am, going into shock”

“If anything it makes you human”, and that offer was enough apparently because it made  Alec fall silent and consider him, eyes finally more focused then before. A moment after, the nephilim was on the ground in an – unsurprisingly – elegant movement and took the offered jacket, slipping it over his shoulders, then looking at Magnus almost confused when the warlock still maintained the distance between them.

“Why are you standing over there?” “Darling, you know I trust you, but I’m still not too fond of seraph blades.” The sliver gleaming weapon hit the floor, the sound almost painfully loud in the dead-silence around them. “Oh. Oh”, Alec said like he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it which Magnus reckoned was probably the case. It was like standing at the edge of the cliff and sneaking closer to a version of Alec that was all but ready to jump. Magnus was desperate to reach him.

Steadyness felt hard suddenly. “Can I come closer?” Alec started to nod, then aborted the movement and stood there silently instead. When after several seconds nothing happened the warlock reached out to him and he saw the way the nephilim was trembling before he actually touched him. Magnus dropped his arm, opted to take stay a step away for now. He felt cold.

“Don’t you want to go upstairs? It’s warmer there.” Alec looked sadly at him, the emotion now plain on his face and Magnus liked that better on him, hoped that was good. “It’s like bringing dirt in. You wouldn’t bring dirt in. And I can’t just take this one of with my clothes.” The warlock flinched like the words hurt, because they did and he wasn’t sure, he was following, but he understood enough. Not good then. 

“Alec. Tell me what happened”, and after a second. “Alec, darling. Whatever it is, it’s alright-” The nephilim took a breath, shook his head for a moment and Magnus caught him when he knees threated to give out, expected him to put up a fight, but Alec melted into him. “Magnus”, he whispered feverishly, like a prayer, like he was saying “Please”. The warlock held him close, dared not speak for a second because he needed Alec to fill in the blanks and he feared that whatever he’d say would stop Alec. And the nephilim was crying quietly. 

Time seemed to slow down, the world around them fading into grey to Magnus as he tried to catch all the pieces that seemed to clutter apart when Alec breathed brokenly. He was half-certain that he was failing, but in the end the nephilim’s fingers caught tighter in the fabric of his back every time Alec seemed to lose grip of him. Magnus felt as wrecked as Alec must have. It was an echo of the nephilim’s sorrow that seeped into his own body by every point of contact. (And also all those that weren’t) 

When the sobs had ceased, Alec dropped his head to Magnus’s shoulder and started taking to their entwined feet on the ground, shoulders still shaking every other minute. “There was a girl. She was maybe two. Possibly younger, I-I don’t know”, he said it like that was a crime in itself, but how could he know? 

The words rushed out, as if Alec feared he wouldn’t be able to say anything at all if he stopped. “The demons where moving between the people, making them stumble and fall, but nothing serious, nothing every more than a bruise. And we took them out after one came dangerously close to actually hurt someone, we took them out one by one and we were quick about it as invisible between the mundanes as they were, naturally. And I-“ he stopped for a second, his lips forming the words, but his voice wouldn’t come with them. 

“I missed one”, he said quietly, voice full of pain.  “And he pushed a little girl of the bridge- and the way her body lay there- she was dead, she was immediately, irreversible dead” and the words wrecked his body, his voice again, Magnus expected him to stop talking there but he pulled back and looked up at him. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery. Alec looked at him, then his eyes fluttered away and back to him, as if he was forcing himself to look at Magnus and failing to keep his eyes still. 

The warlock rested one hand against his neck, not forcing him anywhere but steadying him there and Alec leaned into the touch as if it was everything. “Her mother was there”, he started quietly and meeting Magnus’s eyes meant that his whole body was shaking with the words. “She went to her daughter and cradled her broken body and I can’t forget her voice, she just kept saying over and over again: It’s alright, I’m here. It’s going to be alright, you’re going to be fine.” And his voice broke every second syllable and Magnus pulled him close, holding him tightly in his arms, not saying anything, because what was he supposed to say? _It’s going to be alright?_

 

***

 

**Prompt: _Forward_**

  
When Alec comes home from a longer trip – a hunt that required his entire focus, one that led them across half the country – Magnus thinks something is off. He’d like to pride himself in being able to immediately tell if the nephilim’s mood was just a bit on the dark side, but the truth is that it takes him a few hours to realize that somehow, something has changed. But he can’t tell anything about the nature of this change, tries to silence the tiny worried voice in the back of his head with giddy happiness: _He’s back. He’s safe._

When the warlock initially greets Alec at the door, the other melts into his embrace with the weapons still at his belt, his fingers cold with the oncoming winter where they graze Magnus’s skin. “Welcome home, my love”, the warlock breathes in the space between a kiss and feels Alec’s lips twitch into a smile minutely. But the way the nephilim’s fingers catch in the back of Magnus’s shirt might be a bit too desperate. (The warlock thinks nothing of it because they haven’t seen each other in ten days and that’s reason enough. He wants to believe it is at least.)

Alec wears a scarf – blue, the one Magnus gave him before he left – when he comes through the door, wears it still when he gets rid of his gear and his shoes, wears it again when he emerges from the shower (slipping quickly from the bathroom towards the bedroom while Magnus prepares dinner in the kitchen) and the warlock thinks it funny first, maybe Alec was keeping it as a token of luck? Smoothing over the edges of another harsh battle. (And harsh it was, Magnus can tell by the way his muscles seem stiff. But Alec waves him off with a smile: “Just sore. It’s fine, you can check later tonight.” – and there is a lewd promise in that.) 

It is odd behaviour altogether, but Magnus is just as tired as Alec after a busy week of clients and more clients and he is content with Alec here, Alec safe. But while they eat, the nephilim shifts and Magnus’s sees it. There is a something like a thin red line across his collarbone that he very carefully hides. _(One that looks magic-made. But who could have done such a thing?)_ Alec’s eyes find his and there is realization in them. He lowers the spoon and looks defeated, smiling sadly almost. “It’s just a small wound. It’s nothing. I don’t want you to worry.”

Oh, but that makes it worse. Because of course Magnus worries and Alec doesn’t hide if he is hurting usually, not anymore, but if he does it’s usually bad.  “Alec”, he says, can hear his own voice shaking. “Please.” The breath the nephilim releases is shuttering. He slides the scarf of his neck, even pulls the shirt off. Magnus gasps sharply, moves forward before he decides to do so and is around the table, leaning down to Alec in a heartbeat. The warlock runs his fingers over the lightning pattern that is angry red and starting to turn blue and reaching all the way around the side of his torso, up to his collarbone and neck; the centre of the wound just above his heart. 

The nephilim doesn’t stop him, goes limp under his hands in the way to meant complete and utter trust. As Magnus runs his fingers over the patterns repeatedly, he thinks of magic again, off how this could be the result from magic. “How-“, he starts and after a microsecond Magnus recognizes the pattern, realizes it’s painfully familiar and he jumps back as if burned. He sucks in a breath and stares at Alec, he doesn’t understand, how- “Don’t”, Alec says simply grabbing his wrist firmly and stopping him from stumbling away. 

The pattern, the wound, Magnus knows its origin now, can tell all the turns and twists, the same way he can tell the sparks at his fingertips. They are _his own_. He’s never wanted to flinch away from anything as badly as he wants to shrink from Alec’s gentle touch right now. These were bruises of his making, something he couldn’t remember and shouldn’t the nephilim be the one flinching back from him- 

“ _How?_ ” Magnus breaths, his voice barely there. The nephilim grabs his arms, stands up and moves in close. The horror that the warlock feels is met by sadness on Alec’s side and Magnus doesn’t understand a thing anymore. He wills himself to still, grinds his teeth together. 

“It hasn’t happened to you yet”, Alec tells him calmly, firmly. “And you didn’t mean it.” And Magnus looks at him flabbergasted, wants to ask more, still does barely comprehend, but the nephilim forces him to look straight at him with two hands on his face. They breath, share mostly the same air and if it wasn’t for Alec’s grip on him, Magnus would wither away. “This is all I can tell you. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s okay, I’m fine and you didn’t mean it.” 

You’re not okay, Magnus wants to tell him, you’re hurt and I would never- how can you be so calm? But for once in his life, the words won’t come and he is left to lean on whatever Alec gives him, feels like drowning in the silence that fill the breaks in between the noise that is Alec’s voice. “I promise everything is okay. We are okay. It doesn’t even hurt” – a lie, Magnus chants in his mind repeatedly - “And if it’s any consolation at all: you had a million of the best excuses and it was my fault.”

***

This isn’t the end of the conversation, but Alec is right: the bruises fade in just under a week and by the time the first snow falls it’s gone for good. Magnus still looks at him a bit haunted, but the nephilim is determined to whip the look of his face, because for now there was nothing he could do but hope that future was indeed a million possible versions that were floating about.

He couldn’t tell Magnus what had happened anyway. Because the thing was this: A demon had zapped him forward in time. The nephilim hadn’t known at that time, had just seen a flashing bright light and tumbled to the ground, landing on grass somewhere.

When Alec had looked up and seen Magnus he’d immediately known something was off. This wasn’t his Magnus. His eyes were cold and icy and he looked at him like he was something evil and dark – even if there was a longing underneath it that Alec couldn’t even begin to understand – “Who are you? What trick is this?” Not-Magnus asks and his voice is shaking and Alec wanted to break apart. 

“You don’t know me?” Alec feared that this might be another illusion, another cruel trick. Only this time it might be his worse fears. “Of course I do, I _did_.” Alec can feel something breaking. Oh. So he might be wrong as to what his worst fear would be. “He is dead. So whoever you are, run as long as you still can.”  
His voice is full of fury and Alec is frozen in spot. That’s when it happens, it’s not even a conscious decision Alec thinks, because he know how Magnus’s magic works and it usually isn’t like that. It’s like it’s got a mind of his own and he is knocked to the ground before he can react. 

For a moment he can’t breathe, it’s like ice in his veins and he feels freezing all over, only it burns too. Then Magnus is next to him on the ground and cradling his head, whispering: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-“and he stops when Alec looks up at him, something dawning in his face. The nephilim smiles against the pain and tells him: “I’m sorry I left you alone.” Magnus eyes grew wide with something like shock, like fear, like recognition. He whispers something that Alec didn’t quite catch.

Then he is back were he’d been standing before, only he is lying on the ground and it’s Jace who reaches him first, together they get him up and Alec grabs the collar under his gear tightly, pulling some zips up. “It’s fine”, he tells his fussing parabatai, feeling anything but fine. “Just got knocked to the ground.” Alec can tell Jace doesn’t believe him, but there are other shadowhunters closing in around them and he knows not to pry with so many strangers ears so close.

Afterwards he tries to escape Jace’s questioning look quickly, but it’s a lost battle from the start. Because Jace felt the thing that Alec felt when Magnus-Not-Magnus had knocked him to the ground. (Something like _despair._ ) He tells Jace in barely any words and then how it was probably just an illusion and if not it must be another world or something – maybe a possible future, one that Alec would never let come to pass – and his parabatai has his arms around Alec’s shoulders and tells him to breathe. “You’re right”, Jace tells him. “You have to be.”

So, Alec thinks that he wants to believe it was a future that he could avert, one that needed ever happen. (He’s read a million things about this by then, is aware of how absurd it is to randomly choose to believe the one of them that suits him best, but he has to. Because anything else might make him break down into tears.)  

When Alec finally manages to calm the warlock down after the initial discussion, after the following weeks – though he suspects Magnus is yielding to his persuasion only with half his heart, still sorrowful for quite some time  – he finally realizes what Not-Magnus, not-yet-Magnus, had said. It comes to him unbidden, in a moment in between stepping over the threshold of the apartment and walking down the stairs. 

Alec is oddly grateful for Magnus’s fast reflexes that safe him from tumbling down the stairs. _(Again.)_ Only there is nothing funny about it, when the words ring in his head clear as a bell: ** _“I had a million excuses and it’s all your fault.”_** And Alec realizes with sudden horror that he had set the future’s path in stone. 

 

***

 

_**Prompt: Suits  
** _

  
“Now, that’s not fair”, Magnus told Alec, looking him up and down while coming close. “How am I going to keep my hands of you if you look this ravishing?” Alec smiled, blushed still but less than in the beginning and the coyness in his half-grin made the suit all the more irresistible. The warlock had been insisting for a while now that there were a good few reasons for the nephilim to wear a suit, but it had taken a real, proper formal occasion to talk Alec into one.

Magnus thought it was a glorious sight, even in the dim light of the rainy sky on the pavement. The warlock was aware of others standing nearby, someone whispering something that sounded very distinctly like: _I bet they’re next._ He liked the thought of that, he found. But right now his mind was a bit less focused on higher goals and a bit more bound to primal instincts. 

When Magnus was close enough to the nephilim, he leaned forward to say something and if he was quite honest he intended to make the other blush even more. But Alec stepped into his space quicker than he himself could move, gently fixing the other’s tie. Magnus was sure it wasn’t in need of fixing, but he would always allow Alec to use any excuse at all to touch. “Oh I’m sure that you can”, the nephilim said in a low-amused voice, something like a challenge in his eyes. 

“And why is that?” Magnus wondered aloud, smiling himself. The nephilim let go of the tie, raising his head that had been lowered a little in focus on the fabric in his hands and with a precision that the warlock envied for a moment, brought their lips close enough to touch. Blue eye stayed on his lips in a way that might have been subconscious. “If you can behave, you’ll get to take the suit off later.” Now that was a promise that filled Magnus with delight. 

“Here I thought that that particular pleasure came along with boyfriend-duties”, he teased but his voice was a bit breathy. The nephilim noticed if the tiny smirk was any indication. Very deliberately, Alec licked his lips and their eyes met. Oh, Magnus realized, there was nothing subconscious about any of this. The little tease. 

“Mhm”, Alec considered while drawing back a bit, finger tapping his jawline. “Well, if you behave, I could offer to give you a show.” The last words were quietly, intended for Magnus alone to hear. The warlock blinked. Alec grinned, knowing he’d won and left him standing there with a quick peck on his lips. Magnus was probably still trying to find his composure when Clary passed him with a half-grin. The warlock had thought she had been hovering a bit close.


	15. Prompt 56 - 60

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... a smutty one. Be warned.

_**Prompt (56): See you soon** _

  
So, as of the last twenty-five minutes, there was a group of shadowhunters occupying the space between the couch (marron this week) and the door. The same had a fair bit of spare room that was now littered with weapons and people sitting on the ground while strapping this or that on, or leaning against the back of the sofa while fastening a belt. The warlock wondered idly, when the little group of nephilim had come to move part of their base from the institute to a warlock’s apartment, but then it might be that it was now _a warlock’s and a nephilim’s place_. There was still a fair bit of irony somewhere in there, Magnus was sure.  

When they all started trickling out the door, the warlock refrained from wishing something like good luck. There was something about breaking a leg in theatre, he was sure, and the phrase might fit here, too. But he wasn’t about to use it with all the things that break so easily in nephilim bodies. So instead, Magnus remained leaning against the kitchen counter and watched from there as Alec remained as the last. 

The nephilim looked up at him and Magnus thought, the other might come over and kiss him. But then he remembered that Alec had that look on his face the last time the warlock had unthinkingly send him on his way with a parting kiss, something in his features terrified about this being some sort of goodbye. “Be safe”, Magnus said, not moving from his spot and giving Alec the reign in this. (Even if he wished that the nephilim would just come over.)

“Always”, said Alec in response and it was almost enough. Magnus tried not to feel disappointment when the nephilim made for the door, but it was hard with his heart being a bit too fond of any touch at all that Alec would offer. 

 

*

On the topmost step of the stairs that led down to the pavement from their apartment, Alec stops. It was foolish really, to fear something that was going to happened eventually, somehow, anyway. The nephilim thought to himself he had to grow into this whole thing yet. Mistakes were unavoidable along the way, but he needn’t make this one. “What’s wrong?” his parabatai wonders, stopping on the landing. 

“I’ll catch up in a minute”, Alec tells him, turning back. When the nephilim steps over the threshold, he finds the warlock sitting on the windowsill with a book on his lap. Magnus looked up from the book, he didn’t seem to have paid attention to anyway and looks at him in surprise. “Forgot something?”

“Yes”, Alec said quickly before resting a knee on the sill between the warlock’s legs, kissing him deeply. Magnus met him halfway, steadying him with hands on his hips in the narrow space. When they parted, Alec panted, leaning his forehead against the warlock’s. “There…” he whispered. “That’s better.” Magnus smiled brightly and suddenly it was alright. “Go on then. The faster you leave, the sooner you’ll come back to me.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (57): _Unaffected._**

Magnus has Alec’s leg drawn over his shoulder. When he looks down at the nephilim, the boy has his face hidden underneath an arm which is draped over his eyes. He’s biting his lip, breathing irregular as a low groan slips him. 

“Alec”, Magnus says in that low voice. “Look at me.” And the nephilim does without hesitation, his eyes are barely blue anymore but black in lust. The warlock knows his own predator glace, can always see himself reflected in the shiny black orbs of the other’s eyes. Part of him fears that Alec will recoil. 

Alec’s gaze flickers up to the warlock’s face, then down over his body in slow admiration. When the nephilim reaches to touch, Magnus feels a smile draw his lips apart. The nephilim only looks at him for a long moment and then a small sound – a shaky laugh – drags from his lips. “How are you so unaffect- **controlled**?” he asks and drags his arms over his face again, only to peer out from under them a second later. “I guess you become used to it?” 

There is something in his eyes for a moment that Magnus wants to throw out of the room and burn, but it’s gone quickly replaced by genuine curiosity. The warlock leans down, comes to rest between the nephilim’s long, pale legs and catches the other’s wrists. When he has both of the Alec’s hands removed from his face, he presses one down next to his head on the mattress and drags the other in to rest over the pulse point on his neck. “Do I seem _unaffected_?” 

His voice is a growl, Alec’s eyes become wide for a moment when his fingers press down on the warlock’s pulse. Magnus inclines his head, with a lopsided grin makes both of their free hands reach down to his own hardness where it’s pressed closely to Alec’s. A _touch_ – not even a stroke – of their entwined hands has his breath stuttering, his heart jump in in his chest and the nephilim must feel it because he is the one that gasps.

“Look more closely”, Magnus tells him, lips against lips and it’s Alec who connects them in a filthy kiss that the warlock doesn’t even try to take control of. Magnus moans into the nephilim’s mouth without it being an attempt to show just how hot the blood in his body boils with the other underneath him like that. 

Alec’s legs come up high on the warlock’s waist and squeeze which makes Magnus falter in his movements for a second; when they break for air, the nephilim catches him with hands on either side of his face. “The only reason I seem controlled is because you are just as busy enjoying this as I am.” The warlock breathes with barely enough air in his lungs to say to words and smiles at the nephilim all brightly, hot all over and entirely gone. Alec looks up at him in wonder and kisses him again.

 

***

 

 **Prompt (58): _“And when Izzy goes to a cosmetic shop to buy herself some lipsticks and Alec is tired, Magnus drags Alec into the dressing room and blows him.” (thewholocked, tumblr)_**  
  
After what Alec is sure must have been hours of shopping – and Magnus insists that 3 hours didn’t justify all that grumbling which was wrong – the nephilim has pretty much reached his limit. The worst part is that Isabelle actually came along and the two biggest fans of malls seemed to have the best time ever. Alec had originally asked whether they really needed him, when clearly they were having a lot of fun discussing colours and certain cuts between themselves, but Magnus had insisted: “We need to find at least two shirts for you that don’t have holes in them. Or are black.” The nephilim had pouted. 

However, in spite of everything, Alec felt an odd happiness about the smiles on their faces when the kept trying new pieces on. It was nice to experience some calm happiness for a change. No rogue demons, a bit of free time. “I think we should grab something to eat”, Magnus says suddenly, slipping his hand into Alec’s while they are stopping somewhere in between clothing and jewellery. There is something mischievous in the warlock’s eyes, but Alec tries to tell himself it’s merely a trick of the light.

Isabelle stops in front of them, looking bright and content with the yield of this shopping spree. She drops some of the bags on the tilted floor in the main arm of the maze-pathways that lead through the place and cranes her neck to check one of the big clocks. They seem to express some kind of aesthetic message though Alec himself isn’t entirely sure which exactly. His sister opens her mouth to say something, but as her eyes pass over Magnus she stops – almost unnoticeably – and speaks smilingly. “You two go and take break then. I’m going to find some shoes to go with my new dress first.” _Which of them?_ Alec wants to ask, but narrowly bites his tongue. “And it’s only a bit over an hour until closing time.” 

Alec might be imagining things, but he could have sworn that she winked. She has picked up her shopping bags – _they must be heavy enough to make carrying them around count as some sort of training_ – and has vanished into the next store before he can comment on it and Magnus’s thumb dragging over the back of his hand has his attention elsewhere anyway. The nephilim tries not to care about the other people around them – _mundanes anyway_ – but it’s still not as easy to keep his hand in Magnus’s as Alec would like it to be. However, the few remaining people in the mall that pass by them seem utterly uninterested in them anyway.  

Magnus, much like Isabelle, seems to carry the countless new acquired possessions with ease in his other hand. Alec would offer to carry some of them, but he doesn’t want to encourage any more purchases. Which would doubtlessly be the only effect and not result in any advantage, except for maybe enabling Magnus to get even more glitter. (In all honesty, the nephilim didn’t even want to know just how many times the warlock could cover both of them from head to toe. He supressed a shudder.)

The warlock had lead him past a couple of stores, when Alec finds himself dragged into the back of yet another store – _more clothes, how could there possibly be even **more** clothes?_ – and he starts to ask about it, but stops. They end up in the very back of the store that is almost empty except for the two of them. Alec thinks he hears a triumphing noise from the warlock.  “Why do I get the feeling that ‘getting something to eat’ was a very lame excuse?” But Magnus doesn’t dignify that with a response – _well a leering glance doesn’t count as a response anyway_ – and instead pulls him into a dressing room, crowing Alec against the wall.

“Magnus”, Alec hisses, when the warlock presses up against him with very clear intentions. The shopping bags are already discarded somewhere on the floor, when the warlock presses his lips to the side of the nephilim’s jaw. “You’ve been a surprisingly helpful shopping companion”, Magnus tells him with a grin that Alec doesn’t need to see to be aware of it. _Because I stopped complaining after an hour and decided to suffer quietly instead?_ , the nephilim thought, but didn’t voice it because he was quite busy to try and trap the other’s hands by catching his wrists. 

“Don’t you think you’ve earned a little reward?” “Not being covered in glitter is a fine reward,” Alec finds himself saying a little breathlessly. Magnus chuckles against the side of his neck and bits the skin there with enough force to make the nephilim jump and lose his grip on the other’s hands. Alec has no idea just how the warlock manages to reach the bare skin under his shirt that quickly. “Magnus, anyone could see,” the nephilim’s voice rises and he can’t keep the panic out of his tone completely.

The warlock’s hands freeze in place and he pulls back enough to allow them to look at each other. Something gentle is in Magnus’s gaze then and Alec swallows at that look. “Now, would I let that happen?” The silence between them stretches for a moment in which the nephilim only stares at Magnus, listens to both of them breathing. He shakes his head slowly then - Of course not – and moves to kiss the warlock. 

There is some shuffling, when both of them move to get closer to the other. Something falls to the ground, but Magnus doesn’t make any move to stop and Alec couldn’t care any less. In one fluid movement, the warlock has dropped to his knees and looks up at him with a grin, his hands settled on the nephilim’s hips. Alec’s breath hitches when Magnus fingers slipped under his waistband, getting rid of any fabric that separates him from bare skin quickly. The nephilim tries hard not to moan out loud. 

***

Alec can still hear his own blood pumping in his ears when he feels Magnus shift and rise from his knees. He is gentle about sorting the nephilim out, pulling up his fly. There are hands on his hips and when Alec’s eyes focus, the warlock is smiling at him. He is grateful for the other’s body against his, because his knees might be shaking and he has trouble locking them in place.

On a whim, Alec closes the distance between their lips and licks into Magnus’s mouth in a way that makes the other moan quietly. He tries to get his hands which are feeling like they are made of rubber – much like his legs - to work properly and slides one under Magnus’s shirt, reaches for his belt buckle with the other. But the warlock catches his wrist and gentles the kiss with practiced ease, pulling back only after another few long seconds. 

“Later”, he promises, sounding as out of breath as Alec feels and rubs their noses together in lieu of another kiss. The nephilim whines lowly, stops himself when he realizes that someone could still very much walk in at any moment. Alec bites his lips and tries to calm his breathing.

Magnus’s thumb pulls it free with gentle pressure, a gentle smile on his lips that makes the nephilim’s bones melt. “Stop that. I’m trying to be responsible here.” His pupils still look more blown than usual. Alec murmurs something with his lips suddenly pressing to the side of the warlock’s neck that sounds suspiciously like: “Don’t be responsible then.” But Magnus gently pushes him back.

When the nephilim pouts, a small chuckle escapes the warlock’s lips. “I’m amiable to the idea, darling”, he tells him with a peck to Alec’s lips. “But I want you to consider that your sister will only take so long to find another pair of shoes and come back looking for us.” At that the other freezes and ducks away under the warlock’s arms. Magnus catches his wrist. 

“The marks on your neck are kind of obvious, though”, the warlock stars with a grin, seeing Alec’s eyes widen. “How about we find something nice with a higher collar for you first? Maybe not black this time?” He can tell he’s pushing it by the way the nephilim’s eyes harden when Alec pulls his arm away and absent-mindedly touches his neck, his eyes focused on some corner of the room. “What do you think about dark blue?” 

Magnus still finds the whole thing amusing, but in a sudden rush the nephilim has him pressed back against the sidewall of the changing room. The way Alec bits his lips is all show, the same way the knee between the warlock’s legs is which becomes apparent with a dark grin. The other’s lips are barely hovering over his ear when he whispers: “Let’s go find a shirt for me then, darling. However, I think you might find that this will lead to you going home without any of that glitter as it’s only about half an hour until closing time and we seem to have knocked most of it over.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (59): _Smile. Happiness looks gorgeous on you._**

It’s one of these days when the grey of the clouds keeps a gloomy darkness even over the hours around noon. There is no rain which is a good thing in Magnus’s books because water always dulls the magic in the air. It’s like the water cleanses all space devoid of solid matter of the rogue sparks and unfinished spells; almost like the clean smell in the air right after a storm clears is the result of that process. 

Right now the greyness of the sky is merely the hand of the storm already reaching over far patches of land, the body of the same still lingering elsewhere. The warlock is feeling strangely in-between things. Maybe even a bit low-spirited. But there is the sudden appearance of the very sun, when his nephilim looks up from the book he is currently reading.  

Without any warning, Alec tips his head back and laughs. It’s bright and honest, and he leaves Magnus breathless. The warlock has forgotten about the book in his own hands immediately. The nephilim has his hands curled around his middle when his head drops back forward. His eyes are squeezes shut for another moment before he waves a hand like a parody of a fan in front of his face. There are happy tears in his eyes, and he’s still laughing, gasping for breath. 

Magnus sits on the ground on the other side of the living room table entirely still, looks at Alec in delight and can feel an answering smile on his lips. Oh, he is beautiful. Alec presses a hand over his lips, but he’s still giggling. “Sorry, sorry”, he’s muttering and the warlock gently cups his upper arms when he is close enough. (A near-accident when he almost stumbles over the table and knocks down everything on it in between.) 

“What was so funny?” he wonders, grinning himself and Alec is still shaking with silent laughter. His blue eyes are bright and shiny. He is shaking his head, bursting into laughter again. Magnus wants to keep this image of him, so gloriously, stupidly happy in his mind for the rest of time. He knows he’s staring, but he wishes with all his being he could imprint this smile on the back of his eyelids. 

The nephilim hugs him close a moment later, drawing him down to the couch, his laughter finally calming down but still shaking both of them. “I just had the mental picture of a crocodile in a pothole in the middle of New York,” Alec tells him when their noses brush. Magnus blinks and laughs too only a moment later. Even if it has nothing to do with that crocodile, Alec doesn’t need to know. It turns out to be quite a delightful afternoon, even when the rain finally starts pouring down.

 

***

 

**Prompt (60): _Assassins and Templars_** _(Assassins Creed AU, Syndicate Inspired)_

  
“Naturally,” the assassin started towards the boy who he’d just saved from a rather cruel fate, still crouched on the window sill. “You weren’t in need of any help, templar.” Magnus jumped into the room then, the fall of his feet almost noiseless when he started closing the distance between his entrance spot and the space on the wooden flooring where the templar still knelt, hands bound behind his back. 

The flat in a rear building in one of the worse parts of London gave a shabby first impression. _(And a second. And a third.)_ The room was coated in dirt and sparsely equipped with a few pieces of furniture that had long lived past their best days. Nonetheless, it might have been a peaceful scenery, if not for the ever-present noise in the yard or the barely dimmed clatter of carriages and people on the main street. 

Then, there were also the bodies of three men who were dressed like soldiers or something akin. Magnus knew he should bother to check whether they were actually and properly dead, but the red puddle around two of them made him as certain of the fact as the wide lifeless eyes of the other staring at the cracked ceiling. There was very little point in checking for a pulse. 

The boy was far more interesting anyway. He might be a bit fond of dramatic entrances, Magnus admitted quietly to himself when his long coat flowed around the back of his knees in a sudden gush of wind. But while the assassin tucked his sword back into the sheath at his belt, he felt entitled to a little bit of self-indulgence. Or maybe he just waited for a reaction of the captured youth?

 

Part of Magnus still wondered, why he cared about the fate of a templar. It was quite obvious in the way the youth on the ground was dressed that he belonged with them. At least it was for the trained eye and, of course, the assassin, who knew where to look for clues. However, the youth’s clothes looked more worn than Magnus would have expected. _Didn’t the order take care of their own?_

But the boy was indeed a templar, if the way he had tensed being called out was any indication. His mouth was set into a stubborn line. Which brought back the question why Magnus cared? He had, after all, taken out three soldiers just to save the life of that youth. Maybe it had been something like pity? There had been something terribly shady about the way the bastards had leering at him. 

“I’m still not. I can help myself just fine,” the boy shot back with more fervour than Magnus had thought possible by the looks of him. A pretty thing, the assassin concluded now that he could look at him properly, bright blue eyes and pitch black hair. His features were rather nice to look at, too. It was a shame that he belonged with _them_. 

Ironically, the boy didn’t seem as if he was easily captured with the clearly strong build that was just obvious underneath the waistcoat and rucked up sleeves of his shirt. The situation was altogether a bit off. But there was something earnest about the youth himself which made the assassin a little reckless perhaps in his approach. 

When Magnus stood a mere step away from the boy’s frame on the floor, the other flinched back somewhat. He was so young, barely an adult if at all. Magnus is even surer that he had read the intentions of those soldiers in regard to the boy right. He suppressed a shudder. _Oh darling, do you know how narrowly you just escaped a cruel fate?_

 

“How old are you?” Magnus found himself asking. He might be 20, perhaps younger? The frame in front of him belonged to someone who was not a child anymore, but surely not a proper adult. His eyes were too innocent.  

“What is it to you?” The boy struggled against the ropes binding him; Magnus signed, but reached to help anyway; however, that made the other stumble back, land on his back with his arms still awkwardly trapped under his body. Belatedly, the assassin noted that the boy was terrified behind that brave act he put up. _Poor thing._ Wait, since when did he feel _compassion_ for a templar?

“Stop struggling so much. Let me help.” Magnus knelt next to the youth and tugged a knife out from his belt, then he saw the other freeze. The assassin signed again at the reaction, twisted the knife so it was pressed to his own palm and held his hands up in something like surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you, promise.” The boy looked at him for a long moment, searching for something Magnus’s couldn’t understand in the assassin’s face and eventually nodding. 

 

The assassin made quick work of cutting him free. He was unsurprised that the boy scrambled back immediately and was up at his feet in a second. There was a grace in him that Magnus associated more with his own people and less with the templars. The youth mustered him, but there was no scorn in his eyes. 

“You’re an assassin.” There was little emotion in the words, the boy’s gaze fixed on the hood and then the creed’s signs that were less obvious but still very much present in Magnus’s clothing. Then, the boy surprised him. 

“Thank you”, the other murmured after a second, not daring to look away. Their eyes met for a long moment and Magnus thought how odd this boy was. A grin came to his face. “Did no one ever tell you that assassins are dirty scum?” 

The assassin rose from his crouch and narrows his eyes at the boy who seems unimpressed. “No more than the templars, I find”, the boy – the templar – tells him and that startles a laugh out of Magnus that is sharp. "It’s a decision between the devil and the blue sea.”

  
The second sentence had the assassin pause. Magnus regarded him, the fear hidden away carefully behind a neutral mask now and his stance secure again. Slowly, the assassin took in the dirty state of his clothes, of the boy himself again. He wondered just what the order did to its own people. “Just what happened to you?” He asked, almost to himself and something in the boy’s expression closed off. Bloody hell.

The assassin twirled the knife still in his hand in a practiced gesture and stashed it away. The boy’s eyes followed his every movement. There was something like admiration in the gaze and Magnus thought that it was odd seeing exactly that emotion. Another beat and they faced each other both frozen in their movement again. “Can you teach me to fight like that?” 

“You’re a templar,” Magnus states dumbly. “I’m a templar”, the boy echoes, but his voice is flat and devoid of any emotion at all. _So, we are stating the obvious now?_

The assassin keeps watching him, trying to find clues in the way he holds himself or maybe something else about the way he looks that gives more away about him? But, no. There was altogether very little. A boy with pretty eyes, dirty clothes and his shoulders alternating between pushing back and drawing in as if the youth fought for control of his own movements. 

“I’m a fighter”, the templar said with more steadiness. “I don’t care about the title.” Magnus could tell truth from lies and the latter was not told with honest eyes or a clear voice. Maybe this was all just a trap. “How do I know you won’t just double-cross us?”

 

The boy paused and shifted his feet. He was clearly debating what to say. “Did you hear about the Lightwoods?” Magnus did indeed. The family had lost their youngest son because of a templar ploy. Actually, they were probably all dead by now if the stories where true. Killed by their own order nonetheless. 

“Who hasn’t? Dreadful story,” Magnus said sincerely. With a family like that you really didn’t need any enemies. He’d experienced first-hand what it was like to be in the templars grasp. “Why?”

“I’m Alexander Lightwood.” Magnus felt all his breath leave his lungs in a rush. “And if it wasn’t for whatever they gave me to make me black out before,” he added quickly, clearly trying to prove his worth. Magnus felt uneasy asking about what exactly had happened to him. There was something about him that made his mind conjure up all kinds of dread. “I would have knocked them out myself.”

Silence fell. Magnus wasn’t sure whether to believe him, was he telling the truth? This could be a ploy, a game. The boy would make a pretty piece of- actually, considering the story around the youngest Lightwood boy that might be the very thing that would make the boy’s story believable. 

“You could be lying to me. You could be their bait-“ _“No,”_ Alexander said sharply. The assassin saw the way his jaw clenched, his ice blue eyes burned with some fire that was entirely the desire to destroy. That reaction could not be fake. 

“I apologize,” Magnus said and the Alexander lowered his eyes. “You are welcome to seek protection from the brotherhood. Welcome to join even, if you make it through training.” Something in the boy told Magnus that he would. The determination was clear. 

There were still some things to be clarified, but for the moment the assassin thought it was quite trying enough to make the boy trust him to come with him. “I’m Magnus Bane by the way.” The boy nodded and followed him home. (Magnus only wondered just where this would lead them.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just by the way: If you want to and haven't already, you can find me on tumblr: banewoodcatnip


	16. Prompt 61 - 68

**Prompt (61): _“Before you say yes, get him angry. See him scared, see him wanting, see him sick. Stress changes a person.” (inkskinned, “My father’s recipe for the man I should marry”)_**

_Part (4): Sick  
_

  
His blue eyes were unfocused when the nephilim blinked them wake. There was the slightest bit of shuffling while he tested his limps and eventually a sign when he found all of them trapped, safely enclosed in soft warm blankets. Alec’s eyes fluttered shut again. That was the moment when Magnus moved from his side of the bed where he sat cross-legged, reached over to the nightstand to retrieve a glass of water.

The warlock watched a frown draw over Alec’s face when a cough rattled his body. The nephilim turned his head into the blankets, hands still trapped in the mountain of blankets and pillows all around him. Magnus had come to sit closer to him, gently touched the other’s forehead with the back of his hand. The nephilim arched into the touch.

“That’s nice. Cool”, Alec murmured at the touch and blinked his eyes open slowly. Magnus helped him sit up, when he very awkwardly tried to free himself from the most restricting fabrics. “You’re getting better already”, he told him in a low voice and smiled gently, but the nephilim coughed just then. “Doesn’t feel like it”, Alec told him in a pitifully rough and small voice. He took the glass from the warlock when he offered it and sipped.

When he handed it back, Magnus wanted to insist he drink more but a sneeze made him change that plan. The warlock put the glass back and reached to draw gentle circles on Alec’s back, when the other leaned into his embrace. Figures that the nephilim would be easy to handle when sick. He was after all always trying so hard not to be a burden in any way. It didn’t matter how often Magnus told him that he could ask for anything he wanted, Alec seemed to just curl up on the bed and sleep for days. 

“Can you stay?” the nephilim murmured against Magnus so quietly that he had almost not caught him speaking at all. The warlock dragged all the blankets back up, the last covering both of them this time and while he still whispered back “Of course” a very gentle look passed over Alec’s face. The other’s noise of content faded into even breathing and Magnus let his mind drift through all those happy thoughts.

 

***

 

**Prompt (62): _The only ones awake at 3:00 am are the lonely and the loved._**

  
It’s too fucking early, is the thought that brimmed over Magnus’s mind for a second when he is dragged into consciousness rather roughly by the sound of glass shattering. But there is also the silent cursing of a shadowhunter’s low voice and that soon changes the letter’s positions making them flutter to new meaning: _Alec?_

The warlock’s eyes flutter towards the clock on the night stand. The digital numbers gleam bright blue. 3:14. That was early indeed or late, considering on how you looked at it. While Magnus himself was prone to work through some nights, his little nephilim was usually fast asleep. The days of a shadowhunter could be quite exhausting, were too if the tired eyes of Alec these last few weeks were any indication to go by. 

Magnus had made his way towards the kitchen, exploring the source of the noise, before he had consciously decided so. When he stepped around the kitchen island, the warlock had found his nephilim. Alec crouched on the kitchen floor, collecting broken shards of glass from the ground. He made careful work of it, eyes cast downwards in the darkness that was only illuminated by what little light the moon and the streetlamps gave while looming outside the windows. 

The nephilim looked up for a split second when becoming aware of Magnus, but was immediately focused on the task of the broken glass again. “Sorry for waking you up”, Alec commented, voice low and quiet as if to leave the night itself undisturbed, for there was only the two of them in the flat. There was something else in his voice, but the warlock couldn’t pinpoint it. 

Magnus went to kneel next to him, thought better of it mid-movement and retrieved a dustpan first. The nephilim made a weak attempt to convince him to go back to bed, but a single look and a raised eyebrow silenced him. Maybe, it was only because Alec seemed very determined not to look directly at the warlock. It made Magnus’s heart drop a little. 

 

They worked quietly and when the last bits of glass were gone, Alec made to move away (towards the bedroom, towards the bathroom, Magnus didn’t know, but he could almost feel the nephilim trying for just away.) The warlock caught his wrist. He didn’t want to pry, expected the same of the nephilim, but the refusal to meet his eyes was like an open dismissal and it scared him. 

“What’s wrong?” Magnus asked calmly, the nephilim still angling his face away. “I’m fine,” Alec said instead of turning, trying to get his wrist free. Magnus let him go. “You don’t need to tell me. But you can”, he said quietly. “You know you can tell me everything.”

Alec nodded. “Thanks”, he said curtly, but moved away towards the bathroom anyway. Magnus wondered whether this could work, with both of them so determined to keep the truth behind their actions hidden behind polite words and forceful actions.

 

***

 

**Prompt (63): “He’s not my warlock.” The tops of Alec’s angular cheekbones flared a dark red.** _(City of Ashes)_

“I wouldn’t mind being your warlock,” Magnus told him quietly, a whole while later and when it was just the two of them standing in some hidden corner of Central Park. Alec looked at him like he expected a trap. _(Don’t you know better by now, my dear?)_

The way the nephilim mustered him for long seconds of silence was very akin to the feeling Magnus connected with being on trial from something. He wondered what the accusation was and whether Alec was the judge or his attorney. The warlock wasn’t entirely sure whether the nephilim would argue in his favour or was listing Magnus’s crimes in his head. 

“And I would be your nephilim?” The warlock couldn’t quite decipher the emotion behind his words, didn’t know whether he ought to retreat on the subject or press forward. He wanted to take the leap. (And not because he had nothing to lose.)

“I’d rather you be my Alec.” Apparently, that was something that Alec could give him because he leaned forward for a kiss between the trees. Magnus found that he wasn’t being judged for his past deeds but rather for his earnesty. 

When they kissed, a fierce protectiveness took Magnus by surprise. _(I’ll guard you then, if you’re mine now, angel. You are quiet safe with me.)_

 

***

 

**Prompt (64): _Jokes_**

  
Alec rarely ever made jokes, Magnus noticed. Which was fine that was part of who he was, the warlock figured. But then the nephilim said something jokingly about motorcycles and grinned to himself for a moment. It was still in the beginning of the time when they got to know each other. However, the warlock had just realized that his nephilim had a fascination with them and wondered already how he could tickle one of that rare smiles out of him with that knowledge. (Maybe Magnus could find another one of those vampire machines?) 

For a moment, Magnus was too surprised to react, lost in a sudden train of thought, and when Alec looked up at him, the smile dropped of his face. “Sorry”, he murmured and looked away. The warlock felt the warmth in his chest fade out and quickly said: “No.”

Maybe it was to sharp, because Alec flinched for a second, looked at the warlock confused and stayed very still when Magnus gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I apologize. I was momentarily blown away by beauty of the angel in my kitchen.” 

The nephilim blushed bright red and stuttered something in disagreement. But when Magnus found a ticklish spot at the side of his neck while nosing there, Alec laughed in sudden fits and his hands seemed not quite sure whether to push or pull. The nephilim should laugh far more often, Magnus decided. 

 

(When he did it again at the graveyard Magnus wanted to soothe that insecurity, but forgot for a moment that Alec wouldn’t let him with other people around. It _didn’t_ sting, Magnus told himself firmly that he was more disappointed in himself at not considering, not knowing that this was the only outcome. Alec wouldn’t acknowledge him openly. But it started to hurt seeing that frown on the other’s face whenever Magnus reached for him anywhere but in the safety of his flat.)

 

***

 

**Prompt (65): _Guardian Angel_**

  
Magnus had summoned this huge, sinister-looking armchair and huddled into the piece of furniture in a dark corner of the loft. Drawing the curtains had seemed a little odd this early in the afternoon to Alec, but he didn’t worry too much about it. Magnus got these headaches when he used his magic too often and used up to much of it. Maybe this was one of these evenings when the warlock would just doze on some soft cushions for an hour before dinner. 

However, the moment a snap of the warlock’s fingers had killed all the lightbulbs in tiny sparking explosions, the nephilim had fought not to jump out of his skin.   
Altogether, Magnus wasn’t prone to destroying things. _Much._ So, after a moment of careful consideration, Alec padded over to the dark armchair and carefully perched on the armrest. Magnus looked up at him, the look on his face a bit gentler than before. But the smile on his lips seemed a little too forced. The nephilim looked at him expectantly.

After a long moment, Magnus dropped the act and signed. “I’m fine, I swear. I just want to give into some dark thought for five minutes.” He clearly expects Alec to leave, but the hand the warlock has suddenly, carefully wrapped around the nephilim’s wrist speaks clearer for Magnus’s wishes. Alec leaned to rest his head awkwardly on the warlock’s shoulder, but the other drags him down on top of him a second later.

There is some shuffling, some soft laughter and then the warlock tenses, clearly back to the part of him that wants to be alone. But Alec curls up against him like a cat might. “Alec…” Magnus started, but stopped when the nephilim gently shook his head. “Go on. I’ll just stay here and make sure you return safely from those thoughts.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (66): _North and South (GoT AU)_**

  
“A so you’re probably a northern bird, aren’t you?” drawled a dornish man standing in front of him. Alec hadn’t paid any attention to the approaching form beyond noticing another person passing by the place where he stood between the pillars of the atrium. The other’s clothes were rustling softly where the seam touched the stony ground, then when he leaned against a pillar just a few paces away and regarded Alec. “You’re far from home”, there was no mockery in his voice. At least on the surface, his words were curiosity only.  

“So are you”, Alec told him neutrally. The capital was dangerous ground for all of them in these days. It hardly mattered where they were from. They were all strangers here now, and every new day brought new lies and conspiracies. 

Really, it had become a pure game of luck whether you’d survive another week or not. Alec was only there for his family, the need to collect their small fortune still resting in the capital and then leaving and being gone for good. (Running as far away from the war as possible.)

The man smiled, not unkindly, but Alec knew him a dangerous man by the way he moved alone. “Oh, but I am home always where the prettiest faces are and right now I have found such a treasure in this little courtyard, I feel like I’m in exactly the right spot.” Alec blushed furiously. 

*

Later that night Alec was spread out beneath the man – Magnus, my name’s Magnus, he had breathed against Alec’s naked thigh – and an unbidden moan ripped from his throat when Magnus licked right there. “Ever been with a man before?” They were still moving, Alec shifting to his hands and knees, mouthing a breathless “No”, which Magnus’s couldn’t have possibly seen, but the other chuckled. “Ah, yes. I thought not.” 

Alec could feel his face burning, wanted to give some kind of comeback, to tell him that he wouldn’t usually do this. But Magnus hands were sweet were they ran soothingly along his sides. “Don’t worry, I’ll make you feel so good.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (67): _Eat the rude (Hannibal AU)_**

  
“Not to worry, my darling”, Magnus says, dapping the corner of the linen napkin over his lips, before rising gracefully and moving to stand behind Alec’s chair. The latter flexes his hands in his lap, feeling bound by a hundred shackles, but none of them visible. There is nothing tying him to the chair. Nothing at all. 

When a hand on his throat tips his chin back far enough to create eye contact between them, Alec can’t help but swallow visible. It draws a slow smile from Magnus who is leaning above him. The other’s eyes are blown and dark in a way that makes the younger sure he’ll be devoured completely. “You fascinate me far too much to end up as dinner. Yet.”

 

***

 

**Prompt (68):** _[Tumblr_ _Prompt]_ **_I don't know if you still like prompts or what? but I really like your little fictions and you should totally do one where alec is sick and sleepy and just wants to cuddle but magnus is completely busy with clients and phone calls and such 'ω' ily_ **

__  
  
A cough scraped somewhere low in his throat and rattled through his body, effectively eliminating any thought of sleep from Alec’s mind. Oh, how he hated being sick. A grumbling noise slipped from his mouth. The nephilim couldn’t care less how childish it must have been when he curled up tighter in the center of the bed with none to silent groaning. If only he could fall asleep... But it seemed that whatever virus had taken hold of his body had different ideas.

Alec was fairly certain that having a very specific second person in bed with him would soothe some parts of his body enough to stop them aching. But Magnus had – very apolitically – left the room some time around noon and only come back in quickly to whisper quietly against Alec’s temple: “Urgent client. I need to sort this out, but I’ll be quick. I’m so sorry, darling. Try to sleep a little.”

In all fairness, the nephilim had every right to be angry. This whole thing must fall under some kind of boyfriend duties… which the warlock was neglecting considerably. But Magnus had pressed his lips against Alec’s forehead sweetly, had left some tea and magicked up some more blankets. He was taking care of the nephilim. Magnus simply wasn’t _there_. 

The fact that the room was blissfully cool must have been the warlock’s doing as well. When the nephilim blinked his eyes open a bit, the world was made from shadowy forms and wonderfully dark. Magnus must have drawn the curtains. All of these things considered, Alec could hardly be angry could he? But that was the rational part of his brain. Which didn’t have much sway while he was sick and miserable and – _coughing again._

Alec groaned. He turned his face into the pillows and – the nephilim would have sworn it – only closed his eyes for a second. But the next time he blinked awake, it was to a gentle hand running through his hair. Alec leaned into the sweet touch, was rewarded by a soft chuckle when the warlock saw his eyes sliding open. “Hello there sleepy head, feeling better?” The nephilim opted for action instead of words and slung his arms around Magnus’s waist to draw him close and snuggle against him. 

The warlock moulded himself into the embrace easily, his own hands coming up around Alec. After some shuffling and tugging, they were both settled underneath the blankets – safe for one of Magnus’s legs that dangled over the side of the bed, but Alec was too busy enjoying the fact that he finally got to – canoodle with his boyfriend. Apparently however, the nephilim said this out loud which made Magnus shake with laughter. 

(And insist that the leg was for temperature reasons and _have you never been hot under a blanket but didn’t want to decide between the comfort of a soft duvet and the coolness of the night air?_ Alec grumbled in response.) Alec was just about to drift off to sleep, when the phone started ringing. _Again._ The nephilim tightened his arms around the warlock for a second, only suppressing this really very childish behaviour a few moments after. But just when he wanted to draw his arms away, Magnus caught him steadily. 

He slipped under the blanket, shifting both of them very suddenly and pressed a very decidedly not childish kiss to Alec’s lips. The nephilim made a face when the other pulled away. Dimly, Alec tried to recall when he’d last brushed his teeth, but Magnus didn’t seem to mind at all and after half a minute of rummaging lay still against the nephilim. 

“I think I might become a little sick, too,” the warlock told him, lips close to his ear. “Well, I can hardly answer the phone when that is the case right?” Alec wasn’t about to argue anything about warlock immune systems as long as Magnus was so wonderfully warm right next to him.

 


	17. Prompts 69 - 82

**Prompt (69): Holding stardust on your outstretched palms**

_He looks sad_ , Magnus thought when the raven-haired shadowhunter emerged from the doorway together with a boy that had “trouble” written in clear, bright letters right across his forehead. When blue eyes laughed quietly about some stupid joke the warlock made, told him about the bike and the holy water, Magnus was intrigued. _(A bit lost.)_

When _Alec_ – the syllable was heavy on his tongue like it meant the world - came back a second time and then again, the warlock found it wasn’t just his looks that had him captivated by the very core of the other’s being. There was some stumbling and shifting to accommodate each other in their respective spaces, but in all truth Magnus might have done something stupid like torn down the sky just to make this work.

Magnus looked at him, feeling a smile stretch his lips and Alec caught his eyes. “What?” asked the boy, not harshly and in fear of being mocked anymore but curious and _sweetly_. (Like he was in the mood for jesting.) The warlock was stunned again at every turn. “It’s like the sun coming out after weeks of rain. The way you smile,” he added the latter while touching the corner of the other’s mouth with the pad of his thumb.

He curled his palm to softly mold it against the nephilim’s cheek and for the first time ever, Alec melted into the touch. His trust was innocent and jarred at all its edges at the same time: a boy who was hiding half of himself at all times with a heart that knew not yet how falling in love might feel like. Had Magnus been any younger he might have flinched back as if burnt by the touch. This might as well have been the weight of the world.

But he was many centuries old and Alec was not. So he gently dragged his knuckles over the nephilim’s cheekbone and pressed a closed-lip peck against the bridge of the other’s nose. They were both making their offerings, he thought, the same way people might have done in old times. Only while there was a fair amount of golden and silver things involved back then, this was all stardust. Magnus was fairly certain that Alec had no idea just what worth a single look, only one touch or a moment of attention from him was worth. But all in due time.

 

***

 

**Prompt (70): “You’re so easy to tease” (Magnus to Alec, City of Ashes)**

Magnus says the words between others, folded neatly into a cluster of sentences and cushioned on a completely different meaning. It seems that no one else catches the way his eyes become heated for a second. Alec thinks it’s hardly fair. But he bites his tongue and says nothing because his voice might betray the heat somewhere low in his belly.

When they are alone a little later, the warlock grins at him from underneath his eyelashes. He closes the door deliberately and presses his back against the wood until a soft ‘click’ steals from the metal locking plate. Alec doesn’t even give his body permission to move, but he is standing between Magnus’s legs and kisses the smug expression of his face before his mind has any chance to process the action.

After serval seconds, the instinct is overridden by an actual thought process. He pulls himself away quickly, caught only by the warlock’s hands on his waist that take another instant to let him go. Something passes behind Magnus’s eyes but all that shows in his face is amusement when Alec takes as step back from where he had pressed the warlock against his own door.

“You really are easy to tease,” Magnus tells him, not unkindly and reaches to entwine their fingers. The nephilim doesn’t even think of pulling away, fixates a point on the floor despite the fact that they are alone anyway.  It isn’t as the warlock must suspect anything like shame, no, Alec is thinking. If the black in Magnus’s eyes was any indication, the nephilim could turn the tables on him easily.

So, about half an hour later, this is what happens: Alec leans in to kiss the corner of Magnus’s mouth, effectively pressing one of both of their hips against the kitchen counter. His hands just barely touch bare skin on the warlock’s side, but then very suddenly – _very calculated_ \- the nephilim lets go again. He sneaks a hand around Magnus to steal the coffee (re-steal, really) and gives his best impression of an innocent smile before wandering back into the living room area. Alec would have sworn he saw the warlock’s eye twitch there for a second.  (He was proven right after another few seconds, too.)

 

***

 

**Prompt (71): Three tiny things**

 

**_(I) Are You Challenging Me?—_ **

“There is only a certain amount of glitter you can put on before positively blinding everyone in the room.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“If ‘challenge’ is now a synonym for ‘complaint’, it might be,” Alec muttered dryly.

  
  
**_(II) Can You Hear Me?—_**

“Can you hear me?” a shadowy face above him asked, so full of worry and concern that it made Magnus’s heart bleed in sympathy. He blinked Alec into focus, found all his limbs rubbery and hesitant to move.

“Alec?”

“I’m here. Do you remember what happened?”

The hands framing his face gently tightened a fraction. The warlock could taste relief in every shifting muscle of the other’s body. Magnus sifted through the muddy bits of short time memories that flickered far too brightly behind his eyes.

“Ah,” he said then. “So it _was_ that kind of spell.”

For a moment Alec was quiet above him, then his face shifted from concern, to anger, to amusement and back. His voice was undecided, became shaky because of it: “Are you okay?” Magnus felt guilty, finally found his arms moving and wrapping around the nephilim above him. “Perfectly fine beside a little headache,” he said trying not to wince at the pounding the movement caused in his head.

  
_**(III) A heart’s a mediator—** _

                There is a carillon of emotions that seem to drag over the surface – or is it the inside? – of what seems to be the warlock’s heart. He is stunned to put it mildly. It is a strange altogether, as Magnus still feels as if standing right next to himself gauging his own reactions and asking his phantom twin things that stumble from his mental lips on their own: Did your heartbeat just flatter? Where that goose bumps? Was that a surprised gasp?

                Alec – and some part of him goes _Alexander_ , dragging the letters as if they were the most precious thing – was obvious to it of course. How he changed everything with a single look; the grey veil of ‘been there, done that’ not just lifted but ripped away from the warlock’s eyes. The nephilim had actually come back to the club. Who would have thought that? The boy was tall and fidgety, brilliantly handsome but completely unaware of the fact it seemed. This was a day for small miracles indeed.

 

***

 

**Prompt (72):** **“Whatever you do be gentle with yourself. You don’t just live in this world or your home or your skin. You also live in someone’s eyes.” ― Sanober Khan**

“I can’t,” Alec murmured quietly, the words only audible because there was no second noise in the room. The nephilim watched his own lips move in the mirror reflection like a detached thing, not part of himself. His eyes darted to the prettily adorned frame. The swirl pattern was repetitive and oddly calming, or maybe the word Alec was searching for was ‘frustrating’.

Magnus stood right behind him, not touching, just barely not touching. The whisper of fabric against Alec’s bare arms betrayed just how much the warlock wanted to reach out and touch. When the nephilim searched the other’s face in the reflection in front of him, there was a neutral mask on it that ironically betrayed Magnus’s feelings all so clearly. The warlock might have concealed any emotion on his face, but his eyes were a different matter. Alec saw sadness, anger perhaps, sympathy…? _Anger at him? Sadness about their relat-_

“Alec,” Magnus started and the nephilim saw himself tense out of the corner of his eye, even if his stare was firmly fixed on the warlock’s reflection. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. “It’s okay,” the other told Alec, reaching out to grasp the place just above his elbow gently. _(Like he was touching a frightened animal.)_

“I’m so-“, the words started tumbling out of his mouth on their own accord, but Magnus interrupted him quickly, repeated his former statement. The press of fingers on his arm tightened fractionally only for a moment. Alec regarded the bedroom around them with feigned interest, not meeting the warlock’s eyes. Or his own. The red carpet was really quite nice- “It’s alright,” Magnus repeated, his eyes softening into something more melancholy. _Only it was not really okay, was it?_

“Don’t worry. It’s just a stupid little exercise. You don’t need it,” Magnus told him, while - still so gently - turning Alec away from the mirror. The thing is, Alec wanted to believe his words and when his kiss was honest and real in every way it could possibly be, he melted against the warlock easily. But the nephilim saw in the other’s eyes the reflection of the realization that he had come to just now: it mattered.

He kind of did need that exercise. That confidence. Because how was Alec going to ever manage this thing between them, when he couldn’t look in the mirror and tell himself that he cared? _I love you_ , had seemed hard with Magnus at first, but now it was like breathing. The nephilim only fear that beside the absurdity of telling your own mirror image the same thing, he might not have it in him to mean it.

 

***

 

**Prompt (73): Scent**

Even before Alec pulled of his boots, he was well aware of the fact that his socks would have to remain by the doorstep as well, if he hoped to minimalize the water-damage to Magnus’s floor. That, however, didn’t make the process of peeling the soaking wet fabric of his skin any more uplifting to his current mood. It wasn’t the fact alone that Alec was drenched to the bone – the better parts of his torso were actually nicely warm and dry – but the realization that his shoes clearly were probably not as waterproof as Alec remembered. (He would have to get new ones. Dimly, he wondered whether he absolutely needed to tell his boyfriend.)

He signed. This was all just great.

When he padded barefooted through the living room a cloud of scent caught him unaware. The nephilim blinked and took in his surroundings. Looking around the room, Alec took in a rainbow of candles that had found places on various surfaces. (His mind briefly wondered whether the Chairman had already managed to knock some of them over, but he dismissed the thought as the flat was clearly not on fire. Yet.) This explained the smell of vanilla-strawberry-cinnamon-whatever-else.

Magnus lounged on the couch, his limbs stretched and relaxed, thus effectively taking up all and any space on the cushions. There was a book draped over his eyes which gave the impression of a sleeping Magnus, but the gentle humming that filled the space suggested that he was very awake. Alec tried hard to keep the fond smile of his lips and went instead for a very dry: “Isn’t this a bit of a fire hazard?”

The warlock set up on the couch in a very fluid movement, caught unaware apparently and blinked at Alec for only a second before inclining his head - he might need to rethink the fact whether it was the Chairman that would knock any of the candles over – and grinning brightly. He had also very easily disposed of the book – adding it to a pile on the little white table next to the couch – and managed to look entirely unfazed.  Or maybe the bright affection on his face was just stronger than any other emotion.

“Alexander,” it was unfair just how the name sounded from the warlock’s tongue. It was all Alec could do to suppress a shiver. “You’re early.” Magnus offered an outstretched hand to him and in hindsight Alec probably should have known that he’d be dragged down on top of the warlock as soon as he came within his range. The undignified sound that escaped him suggested otherwise. He caught himself with an arm squished between the warlock and the backrest, the other hand tried to find hold unsuccessfully. (He didn’t need an excuse to feel his boyfriend up, thank you very much.)

Magnus chuckled as he wrapped his arms around the nephilim. “So graceful.” Alec might or might not have stuck out his tongue. “I’m wet,” the nephilim muttered in very weak protest, but Magnus shrugged and with a single finger snap Alec’s mood was improved considerably. The warlock only laughed more at the slightly startled face and gave Alec back a little freedom of movement to arrange his limbs around Magnus. The second the nephilim settled, he was very firmly locked in an embrace with Magnus nosing his jaw. Not that Alec minded. At all.

“You smell nice,” the warlock mumbled, lips brushing the skin of Alec’s neck and making his body relax more into the embrace with a sign. The nephilim considered pointing out that he most likely smelled like the street, like gravel and gasoline, but Magnus nuzzled the side of his neck and breathed. “All lovely, gentle and brave.” Alec found there wasn’t a single patch in his bones that felt cold and miserable any longer.

 

***

 

**Prompt (74): I never knew how much I loved your daddy until I saw how much he loved you. (Unknown)**

Magnus felt like he was set alight with pride and joy and _happiness_. _(Oh, sush. He didn’t need to care for how corny his thoughts were.)_ It was as if all the light in this world – and he had seen a good many parts of its darkness – was drawn into this very room like magnetic things to a pole. The sun flickered brightly on the wooden floorboards of the loft, dancing almost. The transparent rays were only broken by a hand full of glass prisms, one of which Alec held between thumb and pointer finger, turning it slowly in the light. The toddler seemed delighted.

For the first time since Magnus had carried the child into the apartment under Alec’s bright, watchful eyes, it was fixated on one single thing in awe more than in anticipation ( _fear_ ). There had been smiles on its lips, but they’d been tiny flickering things, distraction of all the new surroundings taking about every place in that yet tiny headspace.

Magnus had treaded softly around the child because – warlock or not – he feared to do something to make the little one cry. He found that he cared already. (He would have chased Chairman Meow away immediately, if not for tiny grabbing hands and the cat holding entirely still under ministrations that didn’t seem entirely comfortable.)

Right now the child sat in front of Alec on some fluffy rug, deep green against the pitch black of the nephilim’s jeans. It stared at the clear stone as if it was completely otherworldly. (The warlock wondered if the little one understood how very ordinary that glittering thing was in opposition to all the other beings around it. Precious innocence.)

There was a gentle smile of Alec’s lips, full of calm, easy joy. After a moment the nephilim picked up another stone from his other palm – they were something like cut glass, smoothed by years of water or by careful handiwork – this one he fitted between pointer and middle finger. He made them overlap in the shine of the afternoon light, his lips slightly parted and features relaxed. Magnus leaned against the wall only a few steps away and watched.

The little one reached for his hand then and Alec made it easy for the child to take the glittering thing from him, held another up a little lower than before. The child fumbled with the stone, a smile on its face. Then a soft laugh. They sat and traded glass stones or whatever they were back and forth between them slowly, some spilling into the carpet.

The next time it reached for Alec, it didn’t take the stone but instead grabbed onto his hand, dragging it nearer as if regarding the stone in these stranger’s hands. Because Alec got the reflections just right, made them a million lights on the carpet patch of the floor, spilling onto the wood further away from the window. The warlock raised his hand on a whim, very softly tracing lines of energy around the two of them and making the stones float into the air. The child giggled brightly, hands raised into the air.

Alec turned to meet the warlock’s eyes with a smile, lifted a hand to him in an offering perhaps. Before joining them on the floor for their game of glittering things – which the nephilim should have known was too much to resist - Magnus looked at both of them for another moment and wondered how he ever got so lucky.

 

***

 

**Prompt (75): “You are precious in my eyes”**

The way Magnus held him reminded Alec of the way you would cradle a new-born anima or a baby perhaps. It was as if the warlock took the utmost care to embrace him softly, sweetly in the warmth that radiated of the other’s body. The fingertips that flattened against the bare skin of the nephilim’s lower back were soft in their touch like a whisper of silken fabric, their movements only ever predictable. Maybe, the nephilim reckoned, Magnus feared that he would flinch away at any careless motion. It wasn’t an unfounded feeling Alec admitted silently and in a place close to his heart were no one would hear it.

But there was more to this proximity. It was a bit like Magnus was handling something fragile in him, something made of glass or porcelain. Maybe, Alec reckoned, there was some part of him that might break. He felt a little like breaking. Or was it more of a falling sensation? He shifted and Magnus moved almost automatically to make room for his limbs. It was so easy to settle back down against the warlock that it terrified Alec. (What was he even doing lying around on a couch? While Isabelle and Jace were off to the fairy queen, clearly not the safest place to be.)

He ought to feel frightened for them and he did. But it was like a thing from a place faraway, lulled in cotton balls and very little real. Something about Magnus calmed Alec to the core. That wasn’t to say that the nephilim did care any less for the fate of his siblings and – okay, fine – maybe a bit for the mundanes’ as well. (Not that he cared to give any thought to that truth.) But when the warlock told him that ‘everything will be just fine, you’ll see’ the words weren’t patronizing to his ears. There was nothing empty in them and nothing like a lie.

Alec only hoped his heartbeat wasn’t too obvious in the place where their chests touched, or the shiver of his skin where Magnus’s fingers had long since slid under the fabric of his shirt. There was nothing urgent in the warlock’s eyes when Alec dared to look. What he found was only a careful smile, something akin to adoration. _Like something precious_ , Alec realized with a start, _that’s how he’s handling me._ And just how odd was that?

 

***

 

**Prompt (76): I see you**

_I can see you_ , Magnus didn’t say but the thought was so loud within the caverns of his own head that for a moment the noise drowned out everything else. He could hardly believe that no one else had heard it. There was still music in the background, a wild flourish of glitter raining down around them. This was a party to his liking.

The steady beat of his shoes clicking on the floor was registered beneath the beats of the drums in his mind like an afterthought. _Yes, every of his movements did make a sound didn’t it?_ He’d draw attention everywhere, he’d invite them to stare. _(Mock their tiny little minds, for their tiny little world view, with their society constructing the status quo around them like an uncaring teacher dictating the rules of their freedom to them.)_ That seemed a harsh train of thought to the warlock, when the litany of words stopped. He felt strangely detached. No. Dangerous road to go down. Back to attention.  

Magnus, he wasn’t ashamed to admit it in the least, was loud, bright and present in every way that this boy across the dance floor was not. A shadowhunter moved quietly by nature and it was no different for this boy, his nephilim nature glaringly obvious in the dark swirls tattooing his stark white skin. ( _Or maybe that was just the club’s lighting?_ ) But this boy, and that was the thing that made him stick out like a sore thumb to Magnus, was folding in on himself. How odd was that? The boy was trying to be invisible in a party crowd. Didn’t he know big parties were things of strict privacy?

The warlock inclined his head, moved closer in a half-circle around the mass of people. _(Not-people.)_ The boy kept his hands close to his body, clearly able to kill anyone that looked at him the wrong way in at least fifteen different but equally effective ways. Something about him told Magnus that he never would. Maybe, it was the fact that he had drawn his shoulders forward just the slightest bit, the dark curls of hair obscuring the best feature of his face as if in hiding. Eyes of the brightest blue like they were created artificially, only not quite. Magnus knew that colour, oh how good he knew it. _A Herondale then?_

Later the warlock’s infatuation only grew: Honed skill, which no doubt came from years of practice, was on display with every fingertip passing by the fetching of his arrows. The warlock found he could admire the shift of his muscles, in spite of him being a shadowhunter. But he could easily fault that on an old preference. Black and blue. In all probably, it was a passing fancy.

In the present moment, Magnus stepped up behind him, passed by his back and couldn’t quite resist the urge to reach out. When his fingers treacherously curled around the junction between neck and shoulder for a heartbeat only before dropping in a lazy movement, the boy turned to find his face. Blue eyes flickered up quickly, darting away just as speedy. _I can see you_ , the warlock thought again, quietly this time. Or maybe he was wrong about the volume in his mind, for Magnus could have sworn the shadowhunters eyes widened when they met his. The warlock felt a corner of his mouth twitch. _Try as hard as you like, darling. Can’t unsee you now._

 

***

 

**Prompt (77): Everything looks perfect from far away.**

Alec liked high places. Rooftops and 10th store balconies, land bridges and tower tops. There was just something about seeing the whole world from above, the grey fading into blue on the horizon. (The orange into red into black.) In the end, however, the colour of the sky didn’t matter much to Alec. Rather, he enjoyed looking into the distance and entertaining thoughts of other faraway places with foreign figures and strange languages. There was just something about imagining the world and all the pieces it was made from.

Now, all that he could probably do from the ground but the nephilim found that the distance to the ground enabled him to leave all the parts of himself that needed the steady earth beneath their feet behind. Here, on the rooftop of the apartment building, Alec’s thoughts were free of responsibilities, worries and duties. (Maybe there was something about Brooklyn as well?) The wind rustled through his hair, the cold catching on his skin like an afterthought. His uncovered neck, his hands.

Below there were people passing by. Alec spotted a young couple, or maybe an almost-couple. They were shyly finding each other’s hands, she seemed more eager than he did. His cheeks were red from the cold, she wore a thick scarf and ducked her smiles into it. They were too far away to see, his face turned the other way, but what finally gave it away was the way she looked at him and how he reached around her to keep her warm. (Alec knew that look, knew that action by then. He could read them easily only because he might have projected his own heart onto them.)

There was an older lady, two little boys all giddy by her feet and urging “granny” on to go where it was they were going. It must be somewhere exciting by the faces of those boys. A man passed in haste, his face hidden from view completely. Alec couldn’t tell anything about him beyond his broad build. A group of girls seemed engrossed in animated conversation, but one of them had watery eyes. She passed the back of her hand over her cheeks. Maybe it was just the wind?

In a moment of quiet, in both the mundane and the demon world, the nephilim found he could just watch for once. Some part of him wondered if this was what it was like for Magnus. Watching the days pass, the years and decades, too. He wouldn’t know, the nephilim decided, and it wouldn’t do to dwell. _(I miss you even when you’re only gone for a few days.)_ Alec sat, willing the hours to pass and his thoughts to brush against the warlock in a gentle touch. He ought to stop being so cliché. But for now, Alec watched and wondered idly, why it was so hard for people to see that in the end they were all the same.

 

***

 

**Prompt (78): Forever’s price (Part III)**

It takes Magnus all but a single second after he had drawn the curtains open to let the sunlight in be fractions. _He’s gone._ And it repeats itself like a mantra in his head, like a cruel dripping of water on stone. _Gone. Gone. Gone._

His body is a statue for minute, then two, then twenty. Panic is like dark vines wrapping his body in a tight embrace, keeping him rooted in place. _Wait,_ some part of his mind cautions and then, _Think._ But it’s like smoke in the wind, the letter dusty and gone before he can grasp them and-

“Magnus,” says Alec from the darkest corner of the room. Magnus eyes find him quickly, wondering about the suddenness of his presence. The warlock almost falls to his knees in relief. But he doesn’t. His head snaps around towards the source of the sound, and his body, while still remaining motionless, is his own again. Only, Alec’s might not be as he realizes belatedly.

It’s alien how he stands and crooks his head. Magnus has never seen the muscles under his skin coiled so tight, shift like this. He’s a thing made out of marble. The grace in a single step to reducing the distance between them is almost enough to make Magnus flinch. Not-Alec clearly notices because he aborts the movement mid-motion. “Sorry,” he says and his voice is small; but it isn’t his. It’s ancient and grave and without any form at all. Like the rest of him.

The warlock touches every part of his body with a look that is a caress: assessing, processing, valuing. He’s wearing black boxershorts, a fraying shirt. Bare legs, bare arms, bare face. Only everything about him seems hidden. The shadows don’t help, the light from the window enough to show every part of him in all clarity – but that might be Magnus’s eyes. “Alec,” he says slowly, willing the word to make it true. This is Alec, this is him. I know this scar above his knee, and the curve of that thumb-bone becoming hand plate, and the dip of that collarbone and the cupid’s bow of his lips and those eyes-

Magnus felt the breath catch in his throat, ripped the curtain almost off with the force that he used to shove it away from the window, letting in the light. Alec didn’t flinch, didn’t draw back. The light caught on his skin the same as always. Only it didn’t in his eyes. They were a million shades of blue and green and brown – they were all of them and none at all – and then: nothing. As if his pupils had swallowed up the color of his irises completely – them becoming pitch-black, like they were… _void_.

Alec’s eyes slid shut. “ _Magnus_ ,” this time it was a plea and only now the warlock could see the tear tracks on his cheeks, the clenched fists. “What’s happening? No, what happened? H-how-?”, and his voice – his voice, his own, _oh his own_ – was muffled against the warlock’s chest then as he drew him close. “It’s alright,” the lie drops from Magnus’s lips easily, followed by all those sweet nothings one says when the ground under your feet seemed to shift enough to leave your life off-balance completely.

 

***

 

**Prompt (79): “I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.” (Michael Faudet, Dirty Pretty Things)**

It wasn’t the eyes this time around. No black and blue in sight. This one was of bright red hair. The eyes were hidden from Magnus’s view, he didn’t know right then that he was interested at all. He minded his own business, actually. He enjoyed walking the streets of New York, he hadn’t done it in a long while. His mind sighed a name that was a cluster of brilliant memories now, a ring on the necklace that clasped in the back of his neck.

He felt a push that was more a gush of wind suggestion him to move and when he turned there was nothing but thin air. Magnus blinked a moment to long and thought he saw something – a few familiar smiles, gleaming eyes and loving looks – but it was just a moment of warm wind in these late November days. He wondered about himself, starting to see things, and if there was any sign he should work less it was this.

A sigh was cut short when his hat was snatched from right of his head and thrown – _definitely not blown_ – across a patch of green. For a tiny moment there was a flash of brilliant blue eyes, a fraction of a worn out sweater and something distinctively like a rune over a collarbone and the warlock’s breath caught. _Go_ , the wind coursed behind him when he looked over to where his hat had landed just before other person’s feet who smilingly went to pick it up.

There was laughter beside him that made something clutch around his heart. Magnus tried to catch more than a glimpse, but this shape of distinctively Alec was gone. It could not be, the warlock knew, and he counted the years of the bricks of these walls on the far side of the park, the growth of the trees around him as if remembering himself that it was a hundred years that had passed since his last visit.

“Excuse me,” said a gentle voice. “Is this yours?” And as the hat was pressed back into his hands, and names were exchanged, Magnus found that there was a particular shade in these irises that might be very intriguing indeed.   Just maybe, this city would hold another set of brilliant memories for him.

 

***

 

**Prompt (80): Breathe Again**

Magnus didn’t even hesitate, he jumped right after Alec’s falling body. The water was cold, not unbearable so but it stung and felt burning on his skin. He barely realized, only went mindlessly after the boy – _no, not you, you can’t die just now_ – and when his fingers finally grabbed onto pitch black gear and glowing white skin, it felt an awful lot like relief. (Or maybe Magnus told himself that because there was no way that he would feel so much after such little time. It was hardly fair on his own pitiful broken heart; he ought to get another half-century of piecing himself together before meeting someone so important.)

So, the warlock pulled the other up and he somehow managed to drag both of their soaked frames onto the roof of metal. Magnus had no idea just how it happened, he didn’t question whether he could for a second, and he just did. It was like watching himself from the outside and the warlock feared all his emotions were far too clear on his face. There was still something panicked in them.

Only when Alec’s eyes fluttered, blue vibrant against the smoke-smutched, dirty skin, did Magnus realize he’d been holding his breath. The air shuddered into his lungs, catching on something perhaps because the warlock felt so very out of oxygen, as he watched Alec oriented himself, blinked at him, understood maybe half of what happened. (And not even half of just how badly the warlock had fallen for him.)

It was just a single breath, not the first that Alec drew after almost drowning, not the second, but the one when their eyes met and finally, Magnus could breathe again too.

 

***

 

**Prompt (81):** **“Keep in mind that when your mother fled from the Shadow World, it wasn’t the monster she was hiding from.  […] It was the Shadowhunters.” (City of Bones 244) + Winter**

_They_ are the monsters. With all their upright morals and their angelic faces; with their pretty little black-and-white world. It was true that the fairies where the ones that could not lie, but they were predictable in their cruelty like that, weren’t they? Nephilim were not.

Some stones were scattered haphazardly on the dirty earth in front of him, providing the usual game of watch-your-step. This time they seemed irritating and Magnus began picking some up to let them drop back to the ground, then flip into a half-frozen puddle here and there. More and more, they broke the surfaces through tiny gestures of the warlock’s wrist. It was the game of a miffed child.

One of the stones bounced from the hard ground to come back to rest at Magnus’s feet. It snapped him out of the practice, made his eyes wander across the street to see whether anyone had started laughing at his childish mannerism already. (A small, very dark part of them thought they’d provide a welcome outlet for his anger.) Magnus should really have more control by now. He was not a young boy anymore, not by any measurements of time. Even a warlock’s ones.

 _Oh, but how these despicable creatures_ – he made himself breathe. No. No, he wouldn’t be like that. This was just the outcome of another sneering individual who didn’t know any better but to assume the worst of any downworlder he came across. _Stupid nephilim._ No, stupid _himself_. Magnus felt irritated by himself, how he could let this get to him at all. (It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard it all before.)

So, why was it then that _warlock scum_ and _downworlder_ still stung? By all means, they should be part of common occurrences to Magnus now, like distant relatives with dark tongues who had grown dark and hateful. The warlock stopped his angry steps, pressed fingers to the bridge of his nose and breathed. _Stop it,_ he told himself, _stop it right now._

A carriage passed by him and he blinked his eyes open, visualized – feeling more than a little foolish – a dark cloud of fizzling anger onto its roof and wishing this foolish emotion, these stupid nephilim away. A smile dragged his lips apart unbidden. So, there was something to these little bits of psychology which had been whispered between the bedsheets to him – in a lover’s tale of daily dealings which was cut short by more heated… _discussions._

No more shadowhunters, Magnus vowed and in the moment the thought had crossed his mind knew it was a blatant lie. But he ought to lie to himself from time to time, the warlock mussed, while straightening his jacket, standing at another London corner, the people floating in and out of shops. It was quite a rush today.

The warlock was surprised to note that mid-November had already passed, as became clear by the way his fingers began to tingle from the cold. That was something the nephilim had to deal with, but Magnus didn’t. He cradled blue sparks between his hands, holding them close to his lips in imitation of blowing warm air into the cove between his palms. No more nephilim. No more nonsense. For right now, Magnus thought decidedly, he was going to enjoy the bright lights of the winter season. (And wait to be proven wrong. Hoped.)

 

***

 

**Prompt (82):** **AU where Magnus is a band ( possibly with Catarina and Ragnor) and Magnus is a huge fan. He like meets Magnus backstage or runs into him in a store and he's an adorable nervous mess**

When Alec entered the concert hall with Isabelle’s arm linked through his, the first thought that flicked through his mind was something along the lines of _that’s a lot of people_. There was a flock of colourfully dressed people here, a group of them over there and a few fairly plain dressed people – at least in comparison to that girl with the bright red feather boa… wait were those _antlers_? - leaning against the sides.

Granted, they were fairly late in their arrival because Isabelle had changed her outfit twice and then decided that there was no way that Alec would wear _that ratty old shirt_. However, Alec thought as he took in stands with shirts, a big stage in the centre of the room and several long bars, being stuck with a dark blue shirt and a simple jeans was a kind fashion choice form his sister. While he probably look very out of place, Alec at least felt fairly comfortable in his skin – come one, those wings could not be comfy.

The steel construction mounted high above their heads on brick walls gave the place a rustic look. It was probably meant to clash with the flamboyant crowd. Alec had to admit it worked: the contrast was almost charming. Not that he would admit that out loud.

Isabelle had insisted on bringing him along and Alec had really wanted to say no, but she seemed giddily and genuinely happy about the company. Besides, Alec could really do with a free evening and a little music. They filtered through a path in the crowed, ended up somewhere just to the left of the centre. In the half-hour or so that they stood there Alec realized two things: first, Isabelle really knew almost everybody somehow and second, he would need to be extremely protective if he didn’t trust so much in Isabelle’s ability to take care of herself.

“I’m not a child, you know,” Isabelle said after waving another friend from afar. “No need to go all ‘big brother’ on me.” She said it fondly and Alec shrugged in response. Just then the lights were dimmed and the supporting band started their show to heat up the crowd.

***

Soon enough, the main act took the stage while thunderous applause filled the hall to the brink with noise. There was three band members as far as Alec could tell from his position amidst the crowd. The drummer had something grim about him and he seemed so very engrossed in his music that he hardly noticed two girls close to fainting in the first row. (Also there was something faintly greenish about his skin. But Alec figured that might have been the lights.)

The front of the stage was taken by two guitarists, one female with a floor-length dress almost as brightly white as her hair. She sang the vocals for the two first tracks and Alec was so busy watching her for a few minutes that he only took notice of the third person on stage when a male voice started the third song. He didn’t even need to look at him to realize who it was. Magnus Bane.

But hadn’t Bane stopped making music over two years ago? Alec was fairly sure he would have picked up the news of him joining a band. He did after all own all of Magnus Bane’s albums and knew the songs by heart. In all fairness, Alec might be a little overenthusiastic when it came to the artist Magnus Bane. He also had barely listened to any music at all this past half year, being busy studying for college and working part-time and trying to please his parents-

God, Bane was even _better_ if that was possible. Another line in that impressive voice swept Alec from the cloud of thoughts suddenly clustering his mind. His eyes focused on the singer, the voice and the instruments complimenting them. There was something magic about the performance, about Magnus Bane’s fingers moving along the strings. Alec would have closed his eyes to concentrate on the melody that was flooding the room, but he was too enchanted to look away. Part of him wondered, how he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this.

Bane’s shirt was a washed-out purple fading to darker purple, something in the fabric shiny with every movement he made. Alec was transfixed. “Yes, it’s him,” Isabelle yelled close to his ear to drown out the music. Alec half-turned to her and made a questioning face. His sister grinned brightly as if there had been a joke that Alec hadn’t caught. “Magnus Bane. The guy you’ve been drooling about forever!”

“I haven’t-“ “Save it. You totally have,” she interrupted still grinning. “Hey, you’re in good company.” Isabelle gestured at a row of screaming fans in front of them. She clearly seemed pleased with herself. Only then did Alec realize that Isabelle had probably only been so insistent about going together to the concert because of Alec’s little obsession. On a sudden impulse, Alec caught Isabelle in a quick, tight hug. “I know I’m amazing. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even have noticed that he was back on stage,” she told him. Well, Alec could hardly disagree there.

Alec focused back on the band. Isabelle had been right, he noted after another three songs, there was a great deal of screaming fans all around them. But how could Alec fault them? Magnus – after all - looked like a man-made galaxy, all stars and dark smudges in-between. He might be drooling just a little. Time flew in a rush of sounds and music – and that _amazing voice_ – and Alec found his body moving with the noises around him. Far too soon, the music faded away, the band vanishing in a flourish of smiles behind some curtains as an electronic voice announced an hour long break.

Just when he turned to his sister, Isabelle grabbed his wrist and together they moved through the crowd until they’d reached the side of the hall, where far less people stood. “Thirsty?” Alec asked, throat feeling dry, but Isabelle only shook her head. “Only for adventure, dear brother,” she play-mocked.

Isabelle dragged him along towards a small door on the side of the huge hall that clearly said Private in unembellished letters. For a moment, Alec considered to point it out but when he drew a breath to speak Isabelle shot him a look and he figured if either of them ended up in police custody the either might else well join the party. (It wasn’t as if Alec wasn’t going to get yelled at anyway.)  

“Do I want to know, where we’re going?” Isabelle was silent for a long moment, simply moving along through the corridors hidden away behind the actual audience hall. “Why to find Magnus Bane of course,” she said suddenly after another turn as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Alec’s feet just stopped and Isabelle came to a halt suddenly. “Absolutely not.” He had no idea what he would say. He’d probably say something stupid. If he managed to say anything at all. Or he would drool. Now that would be embarrassing.

“Why not?”

“Because they’re taking a break, because this is the backstage area where we are clearly not supposed to be, because I would not even know what to say,” Alex started to list. “Take your pick.” He wasn’t going to keep voicing the mental bullet points as they kept getting more ridiculous. At least to the rational part of his mind. Unfortunately, that part seemed to take a sudden leave of absence.

Isabelle shrugged. “Well okay, then I’m going alone.”

“Go right ahead,” Alec told her, suddenly quite sure that he wouldn’t take the embarrassment of stuttering something stupid in front of Magnus Bane atop the yelling of his parents. Isabelle still looked entirely pleased with herself and in another moment rounded the corner just ahead of them. Only when Alec turned did he realize his mistake. He had no idea which way they to go. “Izzy-,” he started and stopped with a sign. _Great._

 

***

It was impossible that the backstage area was this large and confusing. But it was. Alec was fairly certain that he had walked past this door before. Part of him just wanted to sit down somewhere. Just because. But there was also the part of him that really wanted to hear the second bit of the show. If only there were less conflicting intentions in his head. Maybe Alec would allow himself to stop trying to control them once in a while then.

Alec’s thoughts as well as his pacing were cut short by a solid frame in front of him, holding something that clearly wasn’t as solid. A second later something wet splashed onto his shirt. Someone sighed.

“Well, I’d apologize but we’ve obviously both not been watching where we’re going”, Magnus Bane said and when their eyes met added: “But then again, I guess in your case I will totally apologize.” Alec stared. Blinked. Kept staring. Oh God. Seriously? This evening plummeted from the best night in the month to the worst this year very quickly.

Magnus drew an eyebrow up. “… I didn’t break you now, did I?” he wondered, a confused smile tugging at his lips. Alec snapped out of it. “Yes. No. Sorry.” He made to turn around and walk away but Magnus stopped him with a hand on his arm. _No easy escape then._

“Wait. I spilled my wine on your shirt, I could at least offer to let you wash up in my room? I mean if this is what you look like with your shirt on, I think I’d enjoy the sight.” Alec’s head was a bit helpless in forming a reply and he spluttered out: “I really like your music.”

It was Magnus’s time to blink. A moment later he grinned. “Well, thank you. Is that why you’re sneaking around here?” Alec fumbled to explain, but Magnus only laughed. And he still had his hand on Alec’s arm _. Right there. “_ It’s alright, you’re cute so you can totally stay. What’s your name?”

“Alec,” his mouth supplied, while his mind still tried to process what was happening here. It was a good thing he did actually manage to speak proper words. Even if only a few of them made sense. Suddenly, loud noise sounded from down the hall and Alec jumped. “That’s only Catarina and Ragnor. Clearly, they are having a lot of on their own,” commented Magnus, dropping his hold on Alec’s arm. Much to his disappointment. Magnus tried to seem irritated, but his voice was clearly fond.

“Ragnor didn’t seem like the partying type,” Alec said before he could keep his words in check. Only then did he realize that the singer was still wearing the same shirt, a whole galaxy on his torso. (Another one in his eyes. They had an odd colour.)

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “How did you reckon?” He took a half-step forward as if to peer down the hall. “He seemed… serious? Barely noticed all the swooning he caused,” Alec muttered the last bit. Congratulations, Alec thought to himself, you’re having a conversation that doesn’t consist of single-word-replies.

Magnus laughed again. He had quite a pretty laugh. “Oh, he does notice, believe me.”

Standing this close, Alec noticed as well that the shirt really was full of glitter. It the dim light the dancing of tiny reflections along Magnus’s torso was less flashy, but his appearance all the more alluring for it. His jeans was impossible tight, showing of long legs and a tiger’s lithe build. There was a twinkle in the other’s eyes, a smirk that was honestly promising and Alec realized that he had been staring.

He started to stammer an apology, but Magnus only laughed good-naturedly. “Oh darling, let’s establish that I’d enjoy you mentally undressing me at least as much as I’d enjoy undressing you.” Alec was certain that his face must have glowed in bright red with embarrassment, but he was spared any further stumbling and fumbling for words when a very flustered assistant suddenly appeared behind Magnus.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr Bane, but it seems a few… overeager fans have managed to sneak past security and wander through the backstage corridors somewhere here”, her eyes travelled past Magnus and scrutinized Alec for a moment (He wondered how he must look? All flustered and full of spilled wine?).

There was something _proper_ about her, something that made her stick out like a sore thumb between all the people Alec had met tonight. Even more than Alec himself. She stopped talking for a moment and Alec feared he might get thrown out of the building any minute now, but Magnus shifted his stance and prompted: “And?”

“I must ask you to stay in your changing room until they are found.” She started to say something to Alec, something clearly not intended to be entirely kind and again Magnus was either completely obvious to her efforts and simply didn’t care for them. “Alright then, come on darling” – and without blinking, Magnus grabbed Alec’s hand and they wandered off together. (This was the second time this evening he was dragged somewhere. What was it with other people?)

***

In the end, Alec could hardly complain when he sat across the person he’d been making freaking goo-goo eyes at on a sofa that was just small enough to excuse their close proximity. Well there went all the eloquence he’d found only minutes before. “Alec.”

“Mhm?”

“Relax,” Magnus said gently, his smile still not mocking. He shifted on his side of the couch, his movements slow and deliberate. “I’m not going to bite.” _What if I want you to?_ Alec was surprised to find the room fairly simple in terms of colour schemes, but what did he expect? Magnus must travel to a new city every night. All the places he must have been to. Without realizing, Alec started to run his fingers over the damp fabric of his shirt.

“Oh. You’re shirt, right. Wait I’m sure I have something here you can change into”, and Magnus jumped to his feet. Alec went to grab for him before catching himself. The other’s lips quirked upwards. He wandered behind dividing wall in the corner of the room, only to reappear quickly with an array of more than just a single shirt or two draped over his arms.

“How about some colour?” Magnus asked while lifting up some of the shirts and seemingly gauging whether they were suitable for Alec from afar. The shock must have been clear on Alec’s face because only seconds later Magnus almost doubled over with laughter.

“I’m kidding,” he pressed when he had air. “You should have seen your face.” Alec felt a grin spread his lips, but he didn’t bother telling Magnus that it had very little to do with the joke. It was hard to describe the beauty of a laughter like that anyway. A moment later, Alec caught a simple black shirt in his hands. “How do you own something like this?” he wondered aloud.

“Like what?”

“Well… not glittery?” Alec supplied dumbly.

***

Alec could hardly believe it, but after a little probing of Magnus, he actually shared stories and talked about his fascination about Magnus’s music and maybe several other hobbies as well. He hardly realized, but while he opened up verbally, Alec somehow managed to tense up with every move the other made in his direction. Of course, Magnus drew back every time, but Alec didn’t want him, too. “I’d like to kiss you,” the words tumbled out of Alec’s mouth so quickly, they were hardly coherent at all. Magnus seemed to understand anyway.

“Then, let’s try something to release all that tension in your body,” Magnus murmured, voice dropping to something smooth and melodic.  Suddenly he was close, much closer than before. In fact Alec could count a dozen of vibrant colours in Magnus’s irises now that he hadn’t even noticed before. “Is this okay?” Magnus asked very seriously against his lips.

Alec must have said nothing for a moment too long because Magnus started drawing back. _Again._ But Alec was having none of it and chased after him, his hands finding Magnus’s face and their kiss a bit uncoordinated. Admittedly, Alec lacked in finesse, but if the pleased moan in the back of Magnus’s throat was any indication, it didn’t matter at all.

When Magnus pulled back, Alec tried to catch him again, but was stopped gently. “Now I feel like taking advantage of you. Not to mention the fact that I have less than five minutes to get back on stage,” at that Alec tried to untangle himself, but Magnus held him firm. “How about we have dinner on Friday?” Their parting kiss was a promise for more.


	18. Prompt 83: Dressing Up

 Alec wasn’t a man for dressing up. Eventually, however, there was finally an occasion that he couldn’t weasel out of quite as easily. And Alexander knew it. So, even if Magnus was all but prepared to wage a minor war about the fact that his Nephilim simply had to wear a suit… Alec in fact put up very little fuss. (He signed once, dramatically, but Magnus was the last person to forbid minor theatric outbursts.)

When the nephilim emerged from the bedroom – Magnus putting some finishing touches to his hair – the warlock did a double take. He might have stared. Alec, his Alexander, all casual grace in a three-piece-suit that hid very little of his body with a clear, elegant cut. The Nephilim strolled around the loft, all grace and easiness and home. (In a stupidly perfect suit.)

When they sat at dinner, Magnus couldn’t quite hide his fascination. The warlock’s eyes were fixed on Alec – more than usual if the commentary of a certain Simon Lewis and several whispered comments by others could be believed – and with every movement, every word- Magnus kind of wanted to jump him. Manners be damned. He could have sworn Alec did it on purpose.

Especially, when Alec had let Isabelle drag him away for a minute or two right after they had arrived – coming back with deep blue eyes, made vibrant but ever so slightly smudged darkness around his eyes. (Magnus noticed. Alec knew that Magnus would notice.) The suit really was cut tight in all of the right places. Magnus told himself that he wasn’t the type of warlock to cause a scene. It worked fine. Barely.

Much later that night, when they stalked up the stairs to the loft, the warlock walked close enough to the other that they were practically sharing body heat. The second the door close behind them, Magnus was ready to pounce on Alec, but the nephilim beat him to it. Alec grabbed him but the labels of his jacket – glittery midnight blue, like the night sky, like _his_ eyes – and kissed him hard, their noses bumping before Magnus inclined his head, making the angle more tongue and less teeth.

The was Alec licked into his mouth had Magnus moaning against his will. The answering grin between their lips told a story of its own. Magnus finally crowded Alec back against the door. He began to speak, only to find breathing hard, began again and stopped. “Tease,” he pressed out like an accusation, a promise of payback. Alec laughed. (And, oh. – _Oh_.)

“I want to _wreck_ you,” Magnus found himself saying, voice raw. Alec caught his eyes then, the warlock wondered for a moment if his own eyes were as dark, as hungry, when the nephilim grinned. “Go ahead.”

 


	19. Prompt 84: Spring

Magnus hoped onto the counter, the mug cradled in his hands. (Sucking warmth out of it.) How it was still so cold at this time of the year was beyond him. It wasn’t that his apartment wasn’t well-heated, but rather that the freezing weather was seeping into his very bones. (He wondered whether he ought to heed an omen like that, decided against it; decided for now; decided for-)

Alexander. Sweet Alec who moved through the kitchen with an ease that comforted something in the warlock’s very soul. The next time, the nephilim passed by him, Magnus moved slowly, giving Alec more than double the time he’d need to react. (More than enough to flinch and recover and make excuses – press a chaste kiss to Magnus’s cheek. As if that didn’t make Magnus’s blood sing even worse. Such a simple touch.)

Alec stiffened when he was caught in mid-movement, but didn’t resist being pulled in between Magnus’s legs – the warlock felt foolish, felt reckless enough to pull him in until Alec’s thighs hit the counter. He’d expected a flinch, perhaps gentle resistance, something like an excuse.  

But Alec – oh lovely Alec – braced his hands on either side of Magnus’s thighs, leaned in close – his eyes fixated on Magnus’s lips. It was instinct taking over – naked want darkening Alec’s eyes; and still the shadowhunter had no idea just how much Magnus wanted to wreck him. (Had no clue as to his effect on the warlock, or if he did, he didn’t understand to use it for himself, didn’t think to use Magnus – the warlock wondered if that made his desire for the shadowhunter worse again. )

There was something in drawing out the moment, watching that emotion on the nephilim’s features – but Magnus found himself suddenly, surprisingly impatient. (After all this time.) “Can I?” Magnus asked when his palm cupped Alec’s cheek softly, the shadowhunter moving into it just the slightest bit, but enough for Magnus to notice. Alec’s answer was breath between their lips when he leant in.

Alec was all muted fire, exploding into the touch. It was almost too rough, almost too hasty – but Magnus wanted everything he had to give. However, he wanted to reassure him too. He didn’t dare gentling Alec with words – for fear of having him draw away completely – so instead he made his touch even gentler where Alec’s felt desperate.

A sign was caught somewhere between their lips. He didn’t anticipate that the shadowhunter would melt against him, had to change his hold on Alec’s hips to steady both of them. Magnus moaned between them – unbidden and startling.

Alec drew away then – only the slightest bit – to rest his head against Magnus’s shoulder. His breathing was heavy, his face hidden from view – but the way he kept nuzzling against Magnus’s neck was so lovingly it ached. (It was delicious in a way that made him want to do something about the tension crackling between them still. He wouldn’t. Not like that.)

It was when Alec drew away, a smile brightening the whole room, that Magnus finally felt the winter end.


End file.
